It smells of 1995...
Former Springbok centre Robbie Fleck liked what he saw from Jake White’s Boks on Wednesday evening and not just because they managed to put more than 100 points past Namibia at Newlands. Fleckie saw was 22 guys playing for each other out there – much like the World Cup-winning side of 1995.
As Jake White himself said on Wednesday night, it was a definite case of ‘mission accomplished’ for the Springboks against Namibia.
Back in 1995 Kitch Christie’s World Cup team played their warm-up matches against Western Province and Transvaal – two really difficult games, with the WP match, in particular, an emotional affair after Tiaan Strauss was left out of the World Cup squad. In 1999 we played a warm-up match against Eastern Province in PE, which was a bit of a dog show, but we managed to hit our straps against Scotland in our opening World Cup match a few days later.
Sure, Namibia would struggle to beat any of our Currie Cup sides, but it takes a lot to put 100 points past any team – especially in terms of maintaing ones concentration throughout.
The Boks looked really focused out there, despite having spent so much time on the training ground up till now. They executed some good things out there, there was a glimpse of a new style of play – no doubt thanks to the influence of Eddie Jones – and that in itself is exciting. They attacked from deep and they passed into space well – overall I thought it was a sharp effort from a bunch of fit-looking, hungry players and just what Jake would have wanted from the first warm-up match.
Even more pleasing for the coach, however, would have been just how keen the guys were out there; they kept running back to the halfway line after scoring points and they seemed determined to make those 80 minutes count, even if it was ‘just’ a friendly.
But for me the most pleasing aspect on the night was listening to Os and Percy after the game. Here you have two Springbok legends – the most-capped prop of all time and the most capped full-back of all time (and soon to be the most-capped Bok ever), but they just kept paying tribute to their team-mates and thanking the guys around them.
They are putting the team before their personal goals and that goes down really well with me – I would have given anything to be a part of this squad for that alone. We never had that in 1999 (I was involved in the build-up to ’03, which hardly seemed much better), with some guys more interested in their own performances than the team’s well-being.
Here I think credit must go to Jake, who has instilled a fantastic team spirit into the squad. He began building this team in 2004 and all his decisions and comments from back then are beginning to make even more sense now. This all smells of 1995, to me – they put the team first back then and, of course, we all know how successful that side was under Kitch and Francois Pienaar.
The only black mark on Wednesday’s performance was Jean de Villiers’s rib injury, but thankfully it is not too serious. Jean, as I have said MANY times before, is a key man for the Springboks and Jake is doing the right thing by giving him enough time to recover from his injury. After all, a two-match warm-up tour to Ireland and Scotland is not a World Cup.
A rib injury, luckily, is not as serious as a long-term knee, leg or shoulder problem, so Jean can take his time and make sure he is ready for the big games at the World Cup. England’s Mike Tindall missed out on the 2007 World Cup because he failed to recover from a broken leg and unfortunately Pierre Spies’s condition is a similar story. But those are serious cases – Jake would never let a minor rib injury keep a class act like Jean from going to the RWC.
In 1999 Henry Honiball picked up a hamstring injury before the Scotland game – but yet Nick Mallett kept him on for the rest of the tournament. Henry ended up playing in just two games – one of which was the third/fourth-place play-off, and only at Jannie de Beer’s insistence – but his mere presence in the squad meant a lot to the rest of us.
Jean, Bob (rib), Danie Rossouw and John Smit (both hamstrings) will all be given enough time to prove their fitness at the World Cup and rightly so. Jake has invested way too much time in guys like that to simply cast them aside before a tournament of this magnitude and I couldn’t agree with him more.
Enjoy next week’s second warm-up match against Connacht – I will catch up with you after that game.
Chat then,
Robbie Fleck
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