What do Bakkies Botha and Jean de Villiers have in common.

Here is one for your next pub quiz. What do Bakkies Botha and Jean de Villiers have in common? Answer: They debuted in the same game, against France in Marseilles in November 2002, they both made unfortunate exits from that match (lost 30-20), but they perhaps fortuitously were then spared a role in one of South Africa’s worst ever results – the Boks lost the next week to Scotland at Murrayfield.

It was an unfortunate era for Springbok rugby and while coach Rudolf Straeuli was inevitably cast as the villain of the piece – the coach is always the scapegoat – if you look at the team-sheets from those matches, the Boks just did not have the players at that time. Even a country with South Africa’s rugby resources occasionally hits a player famine, and the next year, the pedigree of the squad that went to the World Cup was shocking.

But back to Jean and Bakkies. The former suffered a serious knee injury just seven minutes into his debut game while dear old Bakkies, and here comes a surprise, was yellow-carded on debut for foul play.

It kind of set the tone for the rest of his career, and I am not being unkind to John Philip, as he was christened after his birth in Newcastle in northern KZN, but let’s just say that “the enforcer” has been no stranger to judicial hearings ever since that debut.

And Bakkies will forgive me for a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the best advice he can pass onto Pieter-Steph du Toit and Eben Etzebeth is how best to conduct your defence before the judge.

Well Straeuli overlooked Bakkies for the rest of that ill-fated tour but I am not sure why – the tour finale was against a very good England team (that won the World Cup the next year) and the instruction to the Boks seemed to be “we can’t beat them, so let’s beat them up!). Now surely this was a game for Bakkies, even if he was a callow 23-year-old.

Jannes Labuschagne was paired with the belligerent AJ Venter in the second row and while the latter was the man for this occasion given the desperate game plan – he had been a substitute flank the week before against Scotland – Labuschagne was a gentle giant, and in a forced attempt to be rough and tough early in the game, he succeeded only in a clumsy late charge on Jonny Wilkinson and was red carded.

The Boks were murdered 53-3 and the next day the English papers were bursting with accusations from England players that the Boks had abandoned any pretence of playing the game fairly and squarely and had resorted to a litany of cheap shots.

Less than a year later, the Boks had to play England in a crucial Pool game at the World Cup in Australia. No wonder, Straeuli panicked and sent the players to Kamp Staaldraad.

Going back to the defeat against Scotland, Straeuli’s team that day was a shocker. Again, it was a time of lean pickings, and the anxious coach was trying to spread his net far and wide in the hope of producing some unexpected gems before the World Cup.

With respect, how else can you explain debuts that day at Murrayfield to props Wessel Roux and Deon Carstens, to lock Marco Wentzel, flank Pierre Uys and wing Friedrich Lombard?

The Boks lost 21-6 at Murrayfield and were lucky to get the six.

Eleven years later, Bakkies is back and will start at lock against the Scots, and Jean de Villiers is likely to captain the side from centre. They have probably forgotten how fortunate they were to escape the Murrayfield defeat of 2002 because of their unhappy debuts the week before against France, but if they are in a losing team on Sunday, it will be a disaster of epically greater proportions given the calibre of the 2013 squad compared to Straeuli’s sorry lot.

By Mike Greenaway