21 Boks Rested?

You have got to love journalism at times. One day we have the South African Rugby Union’s general manager of national teams proclaiming that “No Springbok will be rested for the Tri-Nations”; the next the headline reads “21 players rested from Tri-Nations.”

So who you gonna believe?! Believe the reporters for reporting what is said by power-brokers, and interpret the rest.

You have to look at the bigger picture here. This is a World Cup year and in July we are STILL enduring a Super Rugby competition that began in February makes the Comrades look like a Sunday primary school Big Walk. And a week after Saturday’s final in Brisbane the Tri-Nations begins; and two weeks after the Tri-Nations ends the World Cup kicks-off …

So when the Springbok management decide to err on the side of caution when it comes to players with the faintest of niggles, good luck to them. Bully for the Boks.

And the suits at SANZAR are going to pull their ties to choking point at South Africa’s apparent devaluing of the Tri-Nations. Well it might not be such a bad thing if those administrators did themselves an injury. Nothing short of greed is the reason we have a Tri-Nations during a World Cup, even it is slightly shortened (each country plays four matches in total as opposed to six).

In 2007, the Boks rested their starting 15 from the away leg of the Tri-Nations, as they are doing now, and there was bitter fall-out in New Zealand and Australia because they had sold tickets to their punters in good faith that opposition teams would be at full-strength.

SANZAR threw their toys at Saru, and four years later it is déjà vu. Why would SANZAR think it would be different this World Cup year, especially with a significantly longer Super competition?

Well maybe it is no co-incidence that Marinos a day before the big injury announcement gave an interview claiming nobody would be rested …

The truth is SANZAR cannot prove that the 21 are not injured, and they probably do have a varying degree of ailments after nearly five months of brutal combat.

In 2007, the rested ones had a training camp in Cape Town while the dirt-trackers did duty in Sydney and Christchurch and much later, when the World Cup had been won, senior players pointed to that camp as being pivotal to their success because so much technical work was done, which would not have been the case had they been slogging it out overseas in the Tri-Nations.

Interestingly, it was on that 2007 Tri-Nations tour that a number of rookies put their hands up, notably the brand new Bismarck du Plessis and brother Jannie, both of whom went on to play vital roles in France.

And if we delete the 21 from the 49 named last week as the preliminary World Cup squad, we can pretty much see who will be doing duty in the first two Tri-Nations games.

The big name in the revised (Tri-Nations) squad is World Cup captain John Smit, who has been given a great opportunity to showcase his talents. He was very good when he came on against the Crusaders in Nelson and now has the chance to build critics-silencing momentum.

A starting line-up for Sydney on July 23 could be: 15 Patrick Lambie 14 Gio Aplon 13 Wynand Olivier 12 Juan de Jongh 11 Bjorn Basson 10 Morne Steyn 9 Ruan Pienaar 8 Pierre Spies 7 Ashley Johnson 6 Deon Stegmann 5 Johann Muller 4 Flip van der Merwe 3 Werner Kruger 2 John Smit (capt) 1 Dean Greyling

Substitutes: Chiliboy Ralepelle, Coenie Oosthuizen, Alistair Hargreaves, Ryan Kankowski, Charl McLeod, Adrian Jacobs, Zane Kirchner.

Probable Springbok overseas Tri-Nations squad:

Backs: Gio Aplon, Bjorn Basson, Juan de Jongh, Adrian Jacobs, Elton Jantjies, Zane Kirchner, Patrick Lambie, Lwazi Mvovo, Odwa Ndungane, Wynand Olivier, Ruan Pienaar, Morne Steyn, Charl McLeod

Forwards: Dean Greyling, Alistair Hargreaves, Ashley Johnson, Ryan Kankowski, Werner Kruger, Johann Muller, Coenie Oosthuizen, Chiliboy Ralepelle, Danie Rossouw, John Smit, Pierre Spies, Deon Stegmann, Adriaan Strauss, Flip van der Merwe, Jean Deysel.

by Mike Greenaway