Jannie du Plessis, the combative Springbok tighthead prop

Jannie du Plessis, the combative Springbok tighthead prop, had an illustrative throwaway line for the press yesterday as he headed into the lift at Cardiff’s Hilton Hotel, after having completed the onerous task of media duty ahead of Saturday’s match against Wales.
“One thing before I go … the thing I would most like you to quote me on is this: ‘When a front row pats itself on the back for having destroyed a team you can bet they will be stuffed up the very next match!’”
Actually, his adjective was considerably more vulgar, but you get the point.
The all-Sharks front row of Jannie and Bismarck du Plessis indeed ‘stuffed’ up their Irish counterparts with help, of course, from the Bulls second row and a Bulls loose trio bar Juan Smith of the Cheetahs.
On the same day, though, the Welsh front row annihilated the Wallabies in the set scrums, yet the Aussies somehow ended up winning the game.
“Wales were unlucky to lose that game,” Du Plessis observed. “Their lineout was also superior, they kept the ball well through the phases but on the day the Wallabies managed to score against the run of play.”
A nervous Du Plessis pointed out that Wales did to the Aussie scrum what the Boks wished they could have done in the Tri-Nations.

“They scrummed to pieces a Wallaby pack that had scrummed well the whole season,” the 27-year-old doctor said. “We never came close in the Tri-Nations to doing to their scrum what Wales did. Hats off to Wales, they got a series of penalties for their efforts, and the Aussie loose forwards were sucked in to helping the retreating scrum. Wales should have won the game.”
The Springboks, however, managed to convert their set piece dominance over Ireland into a victory.
“It was a fantastic reward for the forwards,” Du Plesiss said. “And it was affirmation for us that the big fellows can win or lose games. I will give you an example. I cannot do what (Wales wing) Shane Williams does. Rugby comes down to being a sport for all shapes and sizes. It is not the only sport for big guys like me – I could ride horses for example, but rugby has the selling point that there is place for the long and the short and the tall, the fast and the slow.”
Du Plessis is warming to a subject close to his heart, and he adds: “Scrumming is the roots of the game. It is the only team sport where eight people have to work as one. Think about it – on one side of the scrum there are 16 feet on the turf, 16 shoulders and eight heads, and the same for the opposition. You don’t see that in any other sport.
“I won’t go so far as to say that scrumming is an art, but it is not far off it! It makes rugby a special game, the sport we grew up loving and it is what will make me come back to watch rugby when I am an old man.”
The Tri-Nations teams all won at the weekend, although by narrow margins, and Du Plessis reckons they will be hard pressed to replicate that effort.
“All three games were close. If you look the games there were key moments when one guy made a right decision or stepped a guy at a time when the opposition lost concentration. I don’t think the difference is individual brilliance, or about Tri-Nations teams being better, it is about losing concentration at a time when the opposition is more switched on.”
When Du Plessis and the Boks trained yesterday at the University of Glamorgan, there were no discernable changes to the starting line-up that will face Wales at the Millennium Stadium.
Jean De Villiers did not train, but then he did not train at all last week, and team doctor Craig Roberts said he was confident that De Villiers will play on Saturday.
by MIKE GREENAWAY IN CARDIFF. www.iol.co.za