GALLANT BOKS
ON THE MOVE: Springbok inside centre Damian de Allende goes forward during the third test against Ireland at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth yesterday at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium THE Springboks will care little about the way victory was achieved here last night. The task after all was to simply move the piano, not to play it.
The high notes may yet come in time but the Boks yesterday were wholehearted in their endeavour. Their reward was a gritty, if unconvincing come-from-behind series win against redoubtable opponents.
Defeat for the Springboks would have had a malodorous effect, and head coach Allister Coetzee will this morning be mightily relieved that his team has ushered in a new era with a character-building series win.
It will give him much-needed breathing space.
“It’s an immense win,” he sighed. “This is a group of young players that showed resilience and character.”
Apart from winning and meeting transformation imperatives, some also demand that Coetzee bring aesthetic value to the Bok game. For now the win column is the most urgent.
The Springboks did deliver moments of brilliance in this series but at times their basic skills level gnawed at the seams of the coach’s blueprint. It meant the Springboks rarely found sustained periods of dominance.
The Springboks found themselves quite adept at vacillating between the sublime and the ridiculous.
Take Faf de Klerk, who deserves an NBA contract for his timely intervention to deny Ireland a try in the 53th minute. He stretched his diminutive 1.70m frame to its absolute extreme to prevent Paddy Jackson from finding the unmarked Andrew Trimble.
His kicking, however, lacks authority and with the game in their grasp his team was put under undue pressure due to an errant kick in the final minutes. To be fair, De Klerk is not the only Bok whose kicking game needs recalibration.
Elsewhere, however, the Boks ticked enough boxes to win the test and the series.
They were resilient in defence, particularly in the second half when Ireland threw the kitchen sink.
“They defended as if their lives depended on it,” said hooker and captain Adriaan Strauss.
By the second mass coming-together of bodies it was clear the Springboks had stolen the march on the Irish in the scrum.
Frans Malherbe, Strauss and Beast Mtawarira were the front men of an assault which gave the Boks a muchneeded foothold in the first half.
When Julian Redelinghuys and Steven Kitshoff came on as replacement props in the 56th minute the latter’s maiden scrum in test rugby was a front-rankers’ dream. The Boks again marched Ireland back but at greater speed.
“Julian and I hyped ourselves up since last Tuesday,” was Kitshoff’s matter of fact explanation last night.
Pieter-Steph du Toit is growing into a colossus in the second row, while Warren Whiteley grew more influential at No 8 as the game developed.
However, he operated in a back row that may need reassembling.
As a unit it never gelled in this series and while time remedies most ills, Coetzee has options.
The Boks failed to assert themselves in the collision and on the deck and again the penalties mounted. Ireland were typically proficient at the ruck but they were always going to be with CJ Stander back from suspension.
At the back Willie le Roux’s game needs an injection of confidence. He was perhaps lucky to escape permanent banishment from this game following his high ball challenge that saw Ireland fullback Tiernan O’Halloran crash awkwardly to the ground.
JP Pietersen, who was named man of the match, showed flashes of days gone by, while Ruan Combrinck has shown the hallmarks of a man likely to have an enduring test career.
Elton Jantjies, like his halfback partner, seamlessly traverses the extremities of the performance scale.
He and De Klerk form an exhilarating pairing. They often fly by the seat of their pants and in turn it keeps us on the edge of our seats.