THE Springboks’ humour at least remained intact

THE Springboks’ humour at least remained intact after their travel drama over the skies of Southern Africa on Friday night and when the Qantas Boeing 747 landed back in Johannesburg two hours after an engine blew up, captain John Smit chirped: “Home undefeated from a Tri-Nations tour – that has not happened since 1998.”

And the next day when Qantas announced that they were taking the extraordinary step of sending a plane from Sydney to fetch the Boks (and the other passengers that had been on QF64), Smit said: “So now they are sending their B plane …” in wry reference to the Aussie outcry over the Boks’ decision to rest 21 players from their overseas leg of the Tri-Nations.

The original plane’s engine No 3 packed up a with a thump and flurry of sparks just as the flight was heading over Zimbabwe, prompting an about-turn but, in truth, there was no real drama because planes of this size can happily fly on three engines (they have four!)

There was just the only old lady in Economy Class who, having diligently watched the safety video (and seen the sparks) screamed: ‘brace position! brace position!’ And she duly braced away, while bemused fellow passengers thought she was having a fit (the plane had held steady and did not skip a beat when the engine went).

The plane circled over an undisclosed area that is allocated to planes that need to dump fuel, and there was no little irony for the passengers as they watched 65 tons of fuel being jettisoned into the night air, while down below, some petrol stations had run dry. Assistant coach Gary Gold reflected as he looked out his window and observed the fuel squirting away: “Wish I had never watched Carte Blanche on the Qantas 380 incident! Our engine has just blown off and we are dumping tons and tons of fuel so we are light enough to land, and there is a petrol strike below us!”

Did he say Qantas? Is there a recurring theme here …?

Frantic Qantas mechanics on Friday night realised the engine could not fixed and that a replacement would have to be flown in. In the end, they chose to rather send for another aircraft, which quite possibly will be the most expensive ever taxi seeing as it was empty en route from Sydney to Johannesburg.

So in a take-two, the 350 passengers left on QF64 at 11.15pm lat night (Saturday night) and were due to arrive in Sydney 7.05pm local time, some 31 hours later than originally scheduled.

The Boks land at the exact time the Wallabies kick-off their match against Samoa at the ANZ Stadium, the same venue for the Boks’ Tri-Nations match this week, and the South Africans were scheduled to attend to get a feel of the Olympic Games venue. Well so much for that, they will have to make do with a match video instead.

“There has obviously been some disruption but we are on top of it and have made the necessary adjustments to our planning,” said coach Peter de Villiers.

“We had timed our departure (on the Friday) with a view to managing the effects of jet lag and have had to re-examine those plans. We’ve looked at the programme and it has had an effect, but we will manage it.

“Obviously there were a few stressful moments but we have gave the players a free day (Saturday) to relax before flying.”

The team spent Friday night at the Intercontinental Hotel at OR Tambo International Airport and was informed of the new arrangements at a team meeting at 09h00 yesterday.

And then the players took off. Smit and Ryan Kankowski flew down to Durban for the day to watch the Sharks v Bulls Currie Cup game, some Capetonians even flew home for a few more precious hours with their loved ones before having to report at 9pm at the airport. The Bulls players played golf at nearby (to the airport) Serengeti, where the Bok golf day had been held on Thursday, and the Jo’burgers went home for a braai.

“We really are not overly fussed,” said De Villiers. “Our first training schedule in Sydney was scheduled for Monday and we will still make that session, although we might have to scale back the intensity seeing as we have lost the time we had set aside to rest over the weekend.

“Things like this draw people closer together and hopefully that’ll be the effect on this team,” the coach continued. “But right now it’s all systems go and we’re looking forward to getting to Australia and preparing for a Test match.”

So the Boks are back on QF 64, and those who believe in omens will note that on September 1, when the Boks depart for the Rugby World Cup, it will be on none other than QF64.

Probable Bok team: 15 Gio Aplon, 14 Lwazi Mvovo, 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Wynand Olivier, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Danie Rossouw, 7 Ashley Johnson, 6 Deon Stegmann, 5 Johann Muller, 4 Flip van der Merwe, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 John Smit (capt), 1 Dean Greyling. Replecements: Chiliboy Ralepelle, Coenie Oosthuizen, Alistair Hargreaves, Heinrich Brüssow, Charl McLeod, Patrick Lambie, Adi Jacobs.

Remainder of tour group : Odwa Ndungane, Elton Jantjies, Jean Deysel, Ryan Kankowski, Coenie Oosthuizen, Adriaan Strauss, CJ van der Linde.

by Mike Greenaway

category [rugby]