Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Limbs will fly when bitter rivals collide
Boks want to be in final and won’t accept losing with dignity to All Blacks
THE interest in this evening’s World Cup semi-final between the Springboks and the All Blacks is almost off the scale, even here in England, where interest in the global showpiece went into rapid decline when the host country failed to make it out of their pool.
There has been some talk about the “other” semi- final, between Australia and Argentina tomorrow, but it is tonight’s playoff that has the attention of the rugby world at large.
South Africa are underdogs despite their protestations to the otherwise this week, not to mention the fawning praise delivered in the direction of New Zealand by the Bok coaching staff.
As All Black coach Steve Hansen put it, “behind closed doors, they are saying something very different – not only that, they can certainly beat us but will rip our heads off in the process. We know what is coming and are preparing to meet that challenge and give a bit back of our own...”
In other words, fasten your seatbelts. Clearly nobody has pulled the wool over Hansen’s eyes, who was an assistant coach with the All Blacks from 2004 to 2011, and head coach since then. He knows the Springbok animal well, and it is not the dancing antelope you see in a national park.
Accordingly, the Kiwis are whipping themselves into a frenzy of their own. As Hansen acknowledged: “If we don’t enter this game in a similar mindset to the Boks, we will indeed end up torn limb from limb!”
“We are nervous, but not anxious, and that is a good place to be,” said Bok captain Fourie du Preez yesterday. “I feel it is the biggest game of my life; Schalk Burger feels the same way, as do the other seniors.
“I know it’s not the final, but this game has a unique presence about it – as you would expect when two teams are coming from different build- ups but are both on an upward curve, and will collide with the backdrop of 90 years of fierce rivalry between the countries, which no other countries can compare to.”
Du Preez will hearten Bok supporters with these words: “For us, it isn’t good enough to make the semi- final, we will not accept that as a pass-mark. We want to be in the final and will not accept losing with dignity to the All Blacks, which some people out there are saying is acceptable.”
That is defeatist talk, and Du Preez will have none of it. “There are so many things pointing towards us peaking now at the real business end of the World Cup,” he said. “We have been fighting for our lives since September 19 (the day South Africa lost to Japan), and each week since then we haven’t only won but got just that little bit better, while a number of players coming back from injury now have four or five games under the belt.
“We also started the World Cup with a novice ( 10- 12- 13) axis between Handré Pollard, Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel, but they are also now five games down the World Cup track as a combination.
“We are in a good place, we fear nobody, we respect the All Blacks hugely, but we know we have the game to put them under pressure. And if we can do that, who knows what will happen, because it has not yet happened to the All Blacks in this World Cup.”
The All Blacks are humans just like everybody else, Du Preez suggests, and they aren’t used to pressure. Hansen has admitted that possibly the worst thing that could have happened to his team was to embarrass their old World Cup nemesis France 62-13 in their quarter-final. He says he has been waging a psychological war with his players ever since, trying to bring them back down to earth and warn them the Boks are waiting in ambush.
Heyneke Meyer has had no such problem. His Bok players have been fighting their way back into contention since Japan, and in the quarter- finals were six minutes from losing to Wales. They need no reminding that they are fallible.
The same can’t be said for the All Blacks and, as Hansen worries, pride comes before a fall.