A line of questioning to the Springbok players this week is what is most important.

A line of questioning to the Springbok players this week has been the issue of what is most important in the only two games the full-strength side will play before meeting Wales in Wellington on September 11 – wins no matter how they are achieved or solid foundations being laid against the top ranked teams in the world – even if this is done during losses – so that there is a launching pad to knock over Wales and then allow the Boks to pull themselves up the form ladder over the month of their Pool so that they hit the quarters in good shape.

Is winning a Test ever really a debate …?!!! But first let’s hear the argument of some of the younger players, who we won’t name. It was pointed out that all that is required to win a World Cup is seven wins in a row, not a dozen or more. Further, teams have made the semi-finals and finals having lost a game in the Pool stages. It has been said this week that in 2007 the under-strength Boks lost twice overseas and then the A team lost in Durban to the All Blacks in the corresponding feature to the one the Boks play this week against the Wallabies at Kings Park. A few months later they were world champions.

True enough, although remarkable circumstances meant the Boks did not have to play either of their Tri-Nations rivals on the way to playing England in the final, through no fault of the South Africans of course.

They almost certainly will not be so fortunate if they are make the final in 2011. The All Blacks loom in a potential semi-final and – let’s get way ahead of ourselves – the Wallabies in a final.

If the Boks cannot beat either of these teams in South Africa over the next fortnight, what chance of beating them overseas, we might ask, despite the contention that the Boks are ring-rusty to say the least seeing as nearly all of the front-liners have not played for nearly two months, and have spent a few weeks in slippers and gowns at the Rustenburg Rest & Respite, Comfort & Convalesence Camp? They have not, as one player let slip, been doing any training ground drills whatsoever, not that it matters because there is no remote substitute for game time.

Defeat on Saturday would be the third in a row for the Boks and they would go to Port Elizabeth having to stop the Kiwis from furthering their run of consecutive victories over the Boks to four.

Never mind the psychological damage of going to the World Cup winless in the Tri-Nations, there is the more practical and very accurate argument that it is much easier to improve your game from a winning position, and it is correspondingly difficult to convince yourself that you are on the right track and just have a few things to sort out when you have just lost.

Well the “A Team” Springboks that will play against Wales have not won since the victory over Australia at Loftus Versfeld last year, given that a mixture of a team toured in November.

It has taken the words of the most senior Springbok who will play on Saturday, Victor Matfield (he is a year older than John Smit and played one more Test – 105) to put the match in its correct context.

He said: “It is ridiculous to consider that anything has more relevance for us than winning the game. Every Test match is an episode on its own in Springbok rugby, and it has to be won. It is as simple as that, and if it is lost, it is a disaster.”

by Mike Greenaway