MARK REASON

Steve Hansen reckons that the gap between the All Blacks and the rest of the teams in the Rugby Championship is not particularly big. That cacophonous, rasping sound you can hear is of millions of South African rugby fans choking on their biltong. They’ve never had it so bad. They know that the Springboks could be in for a record hiding in Christchurch on Saturday night.

And OK, so it usually doesn’t turn out that bad. It’s darkest before the dawn and all that, blah, blah, blah. New Zealand have only won the last four matches between the sides by two points, seven points, two points and four points. But have you seen South Africa play recently? They would have trouble closing down a tackle bag.

The backline is a complete shambles. All the joy and confidence that surged through Elton Jantjies’ game for the Lions this season has leached away.

He is now playing like a schoolboy and a bad schoolboy at that. Jantjies’ running lines are appallingly lateral and he is pushing everyone across the pitch. Coach Allister Coetzee’s brilliant solution to this after the loss to Argentina was to drop his centres.

But if the attack is poor, the defence is bankrupt. There was a point in Saturday night’s match against Australia when Greg Martin said on commentary: ’’Another two phases and the Boks are going to split open.’’ He could have said that every time Australia regained possession.

All Australia had to do in order to score was to isolate Jesse Kriel in the tackle on one side of the pitch and then move the ball the other way for a certain overlap. The only scramble defence is Eben Etzebeth.

In fact you could make Etzebeth almost the entire South African team at the moment. He made three trysaving tackles in the previous two games and he has set up two of South Africa’s tries. If you want a guy to straighten the line, bring in two defenders and get the ball out of the tackle, then Etzebeth is your man.

But some of his colleagues are an embarrassment to the Springboks jersey. Indeed one fan pleaded online for the springbok to be removed from the shirt. Juan de Jongh looked and played against Australia like a man who had just finished a sevens tournament. He lost the ball in contact, he kicked it dead and he constantly made the wrong decisions in defence.

At this point you may be wondering whatever happened to that second-five who played for the Lions and ripped up defences throughout the Super Rugby tournament.

The answer is that Rohan Janse van Rensburg wasn’t picked in the squad. He probably suffers from whiteness and that can be an inadmissible colour under South Africa’s quota system.

If two guys aren’t equal on merit then Coetzee will pick the black guy. That can be the only reason for the inclusion of flanker Teboho Mohoje. Don’t worry, if Sam Cane had been available to Coetzee, he would still have picked Mohoje for the early matches in the championship.

The man was a disgrace in Argentina and should have been banned. He was subsequently warned by the citing commissioner for one high tackle, but he committed at least five in the match. And in one 30-second burst he failed to bring down both Pablo Matera and Martin Ladejo.

This South African team is falling apart literally and psychologically. They have been ravaged by injury. During the course of the championship hey have lost their tighthead Julian Redelinghuys with a hamstring, lock Lood de Jager with a damaged knee and wing Ruan Combrinck with a fractured leg.

Over a longer term Handre Pollard, the 10 who has given the All Blacks more problems than anyone, has been out with damaged knee ligaments. Oh well, he thought, I might as well spend the time having surgery to that shoulder that has also been giving me bother. Unfortunately Pollard picked up an infection and was in danger of having his arm amputated.

That seems like a metaphor for South African rugby except for the fact that the doctors saved Pollard’s arm with daily doses of intravenous antibiotics for up to seven hours. The really good surgeons are no longer allowed to operate on South African rugby.

Instead they are being run by a coaching duo who make Mark Hammett look like a master of strategic man management. South African fans would crawl across broken glass to get John Plumtree, Jake White, Nick Mallett, Johan Ackermann or even John Mitchell at the helm.

You could only weep at the mess they are now in when de Jager went down injured. There is a promising young lock called Nico Janse van Rensburg who played for the Boks in the 2014 junior World Cup, but he is on an ‘espoir’’ contract at the Montpellier academy. Even South Africa’s hope has emigrated.

Instead they are stuck with Coetzee, who has an erratic coaching record at best. He appointed Mzwandile Stick as backline coach who said: ’’To see Allister, a son of the soil and originally from Grahamstown, and myself in Bok coaching positions, there is light.’’

Try telling Boks’ fans that there is light.

You would love for the story to have a happy ending, but it is hard to see how it can happen in Christchurch on Saturday night. Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith and Julian Savea should run rings round the Boks.

Oh, and did I mention that Johan Goosen is dodgy under the high ball and there is no longer a top-class No 9 in the country.

The 55-point record score and 36-point margin are under serious threat.