It’s either cool heads or waiting four more years
he weeks around the knockout stages of a Rugby World Cup are strange days indeed. They are anxious and excited days, where players seek to come to terms with the ever-present realisation that each match will either be their last or another step on the way to winning the whole damn thing.
The quarterfinals are the first, and perhaps the most edgy and hardest of the three rounds of games left. They have been the undoing of teams expected to saunter through. These are the days when coaches seek to stay true to their beliefs, trusting in the processes and the players who have got them to this stage.
These are not the days for the panicked madness of change for change’s sake, but uncertainty and the unknown create stress and panic. These are the days for cool heads.
Eddie Jones was that cool head for the Springboks in 2007. Jake White’s simple and structured plan to smother, smash and then slice had worked well during the tournament, save for a small scare against Tonga in Lens.
He began to wonder if he should tweak the Springboks’ way of playing, to add a little more attack, but Jones reined him in and assured him to stay fast to his course. Jones had experience of the final weeks of a World Cup. This was no time to double guess.
The Stade Velodrome in Marseille hosted a double header on the first weekend in October 2007 the Wallabies against England, the Springboks against Fiji.
Jonny Wilkinson kicked four out of seven penalties to condemn Australia to an unlikely loss in the Mediterranean sunshine. “Quatre ans de plus (four more years), I wrote that day.
We”headed down to the Vieux Port of Marseille for postmatch drinks and to watch France take on the All Blacks in Cardiff. They estimated that there were over 20,000 in the old port that night. They floated a huge screen on a pontoon on the water to show the match.
The crowd growled with anticipation as France faced the haka, standing less than a metre away from them, wearing red, white and blue T-shirts to make up the Tricolour.
France rode their luck, playing a territory game that was far removed from their devil-may-care second half in the 1999 semifinal, when they ripped the All Blacks apart.
Wayne Barnes, the English referee, was voted as the third most-hated man in New
TZealand after he missed a forward pass that led to the crucial French try in the second half. He also blew Richie McCaw up at the breakdown early doors, giving the rest of the rugby world reason to cheer.
Quatre ans de plus, New Zealand. We rolled home to our hotel in a beer buzz that night, believing the Springboks were now favourites.
In their rooms in their hotel, the Boks had cheered after the New Zealand game as though they had won the World Cup.
Against Fiji at the Stade Velodrome they played a first half like a team that believed the tournament was already done, and almost paid the price.
That may have been John Smit’s finest hour as a captain, as he pulled his team together and put them right.
The Springboks of 2011 were a settled, confident unit. They strolled through the opening rounds to set up a quarterfinal against Australia in Wellington. In the week leading up to the game, Bakkies Botha was ruled out with an Achilles tendon injury. He said he was “heartbroken” and would be watching at home “with his family with a tear on his cheek”.
Those tears would have poured down his cheeks as he watched the Boks fail the first law of rugby union and failed to play the referee. Bryce Lawrence blew. The Boks were blown. Quatre ans de plus, SA.
Most of the eight teams for this weekend’s games were announced on Thursday morning. All teams were mostly as expected, with England and Australia making small changes in their backlines.
The clichés have been churned out, predictions guessed and the talking is all but done. The Springboks take on a Japan driven by the overwhelming desire to give a nation reason to celebrate after the horror of Typhoon Hagibis. They will need to be cautious to not get caught up in the emotion and dramatic running of Japan. They will need to remind themselves to smother and smash, and then slice when the opportunity allows. These are the quarterfinals.
They can be the strangest of days. Win, and the final is just a game away. Lose, and, well, never forget, so is hearing “quatre ans de plus”.