There is no such thing as a meaningless Test
It sounded a reasonable enough plan: spread the rugby word in the US and at the same time grow your depth by playing an equally experimental Welsh team and pocket some much-needed cash while doing it.
For the plan to retain a facade of logic, however, the Springboks needed to do what they didn’t do in Washington. They needed to win. For to pretend that the 22-20 loss doesn’t matter because the team had a second-string hue to it would be a sign of amnesia.
Coach Rassie Erasmus said when he took the job that every Test is important, that the aim was first and foremost to win every Test, and he was right.
For all the talk of wanting to give the Bok (and Welsh) coaches one extra game with which to prepare for the 2019 World Cup, the reality is that the extra match, like several other clashes with Wales dating back to the summer Test in 1998, came about because of the financial imperative.
It is true that without money rugby cannot survive as a professional sport, but here is a question: in this day when the suits have replaced the old pride-in-the-jersey ethos with so much talk about the “brand”, is there not a long-term financial implication to every Bok defeat that might offset short-term financial gain?
Make no mistake, had Robert du Preez not had those kicks charged down that led to Wales’ winning try, that question probably wouldn’t be asked. We’d be talking about the gains to the Bok pool of resources that were achieved by a young squad, which included 13 debutants hanging tough and surviving the pressure Test by having to win from behind.
As it is there are still individual positives. If Lions lock Marvin Orie finds himself thrust into action later in the Erasmus tenure, he will do so with the confidence that should have come from his winning two important lineouts against the Welsh throw during his short time on the field.
Sharks centre André Esterhuizen had a solid debut, leftwing Makazole Mapimpi enjoyed a pretty flawless first night at the office in a Bok jersey and but for a schoolboy error when he failed to field a kick towards the end, we might say the same about the other wing, Travis Ismaiel.
Thomas du Toit and Akker van der Merwe helped turn the tide in a much better second half, Jason Jenkins was strong and aggressive and Warrick Gelant would have done his confidence ahead of the England series a lot of good with the comfortable way he dealt with the Welsh contestable kicks when he came on.
Down the line it might also prove to be a positive that so many new players have now been blooded. It was noticeable that though the Welsh team selected for the game was also callow, there were only two players in their 23 making their Test debuts.
That’s because during the northern hemisphere’s autumn international season, the Welsh do play a few games against second-tier nations and it is in those games, ones that they are expected to win and usually do, that their coach experiments.
The Boks don’t have too many of those so Erasmus’s argument that he needs opportunities to try things is not without veracity.
But while the weekend game was touted as an exhibition Test, there is no such thing as a meaningless Test, and the former Welsh internationals who argued that games such as the one in Washington cheapen the brand and the rich history of combat between the two nations do have a point.
Not that seeing understrength nations clash with each other is unprecedented in the modern era, and the “there is too much rugby” argument is an important factor driving the decline in interest in the sport.
The arduous annual schedule prompted England coach Clive Woodward to send an inexperienced team on a tour to Australia, New Zealand and SA as long ago as 1998, and let’s not forget that the Bok team that lost to Scotland in Edinburgh in 2002 was effectively a secondstring combination.
For Warren Gatland, who has been in charge of Wales for 10 years, Washington was just a chance to experiment. The result mattered, but not as much as it did for Erasmus.