Big Billy’s fit to get to grips with Aussies
South Africa are bad guys against loved hosts Japan
With all the talk of Japan’ s flying Ferrari wingers, a flatterer from the press corps likened South Africa’s Willie Le Roux to a Rolls-Royce.
he rolled his eyes by way of response. the Springboks know they have little chance trying to win the popular vote, or even make new friends, in this of all weeks. the otherwise generous hosts want them to lose; the world wants them to lose — the rugby-fixated part of it at least.
they are the bad guys, out to bring an end to the feelgood narrative of this Rugby World Cup.
in tokyo on Sunday, if all goes according to plan, South Africa will take down Japan, negate their incredible freewheeling style, disregard their noble back story of tragic adversity overcome.
Form favours them; size, too. they are the big, ugly tier One conquerors out to crush this competition’s last remaining — and most appealing — underdog. it’s a hard sell, so they are playing nice. to hear South Africa talk yesterday, they have been as captivated by Japanese rugby as the rest of us.
Asked to describe it, Le Roux, who will return here after the tournament with toyota Verblitz having previously spent two years at Canon Eagles in tokyo, captured Japan’s essence perfectly.
‘it’s sevens in a 15-man game,’ he said. ‘it’s very open, very quick, runs from everywhere. there’s not much structure, so everybody just plays what they see. it’s very enjoyable.’
Whether it will seem that way in the heat of the quarter-final is another matter. Japan’s style is proving devilishly hard to control and these nations have history.
Again, South Africa’s take is that the defeat in Brighton at the 2015 Rugby World Cup is irrelevant, but that isn’t strictly true. Coach Rassie Erasmus perhaps gave away more than was intended when he admitted a pre-tournament warm-up game was arranged with the intention of erasing that shock result.
Sure enough, South Africa won 41-7 when the teams met in Kumagaya on September 6. Yet if four years ago is such ancient history, why bother?
Erasmus confessed he had sufficient respect for Japan to expect them to qualify ahead of at least one tier One nation in their pool, meaning South Africa had a 50-50 chance of meeting them in the last eight. in those circumstances, he didn’t want the 2015 upset — the biggest in World Cup history — to be the last word.
he wouldn’t be the first to think along those lines, of course. Sir Clive Woodward had a similar plan when he brought England south before the 2003 World Cup. At the time, England had won a single game in New Zealand 30 years previously, and had never won a test in Australia.
Woodward thought he had the best team in the world and wanted those statistics changed before the tournament. England won back-to-back tests, then defeated Australia in Sydney in the World Cup final.
Yet New Zealand and Australia are giants of the game. South Africa needed to conquer bad memories of lowly Japan. And did, as expected, with an emphatic victory. it is very possible they will win again on Sunday, too. For all of their feats so far, Japan will need to raise the bar again to overcome South Africa, one of the tournament favourites.
And yet no one should be under any illusions about the powerful momentum behind the hosts.
‘When we played them it was a warm-up game and there was less pressure,’ said centre Lukhanyo Am. ‘We have seen how they have grown in these last four games. We have been training hard at high tempo to combat that.’
And what is plan A? Well, the common perception is Japan lack height and are vulnerable beneath the high ball. When a question was asked about that tactic, backs coach Mzwandile Stick did a quite terrible job of trying to throw the room off the scent.
‘You actually sound like a coach — giving us a new game plan,’ he told the questioner. Oh, right. A new game plan, because nobody’s ever thought of trying to kick Japan to death before. You’re really giving us something to think about there, Mr Press Man.
What seems to have hit home with the Springboks is Japan’s ambition to reach 50 minutes of ball in play. At their ferocious pace it would require the most supreme physical effort, as No 8 Duane Vermeulen, another South African playing in Japan, confirmed. ‘We saw their style five weeks ago and they want a 50minute-ball-in-play game. that’s a bold thing to say, but it’s also a big thing to chase. i don’t think they’ve got within 11 minutes of that target so far, but we’ve got to be ready that it could be Sunday.
‘it’s a specific style and we’ve got to prime ourselves, adapt to it, counter it. the club teams here do everything at 100mph.
‘the training, the fitness, on and off the field the guys don’t rest. it’s a fantastic culture. So you kind of know what’s coming but you’ve still got to stop it. You’ve got to pitch up on the day.’
Most definitely. Even if the rest of the world would rather they didn’t.