South Africa may have lost to a team of smaller men playing at a hundred miles an hour but Heyneke Meyer will not let such a detail dent the confidence of his team. The coach believes South African rugby has drifted away from what has made it great. Now begins the resurgence.
“Whenever we are physical and play our style of rugby,” he said at the announcement of the team to play Samoa at Villa Park on Saturday, “nobody in the world can beat us. That’s what I try to get through to the players. We have to be leaders in our own field. We’ve won two World Cups and we can still win this one if we play South African rugby.”
South Africa, with the opprobrium of the folk back home so loud they scarcely need a radio to hear it, are going back to basics. And, as luck would have it, they are very angry with themselves, which is just the mindset best suited to the kind of brutal, minimalist rugby of South African legend.
If there were one side in the world we might choose to meet them head on, it would be Samoa. The islanders do not tend to tread lightly either, unless it is to minimise the interval between now and the next collision. When Aston Villa next pitch up with a ball, who knows what will be left of their stadium.
Meyer has made eight changes to the side who went down to Japan in the greatest upset of all time. The 33-year-old Fourie du Preez comes in for his first start at any level since February; Duane Vermeulen comes in for his first game since May; Jean de Villiers and Victor Matfield, captain and vice-captain, 34 and 38, have held off the challenges of younger men; Eben Etzebeth returns for the unfortunate Lood de Jager; Adriaan Strauss is in for Bismarck du Plessis, who drops out of the squad altogether; there are starts for Damian de Allende, one of the new wave of stars, and JP Pietersen, one of the old. And at fly-half Meyer turns again to the youngest of them all, Handre Pollard, 21, whom he has told will win or lose them the game.
Despite the demons crowding round him, Meyer was on fine form in front of the cameras and mics. Nevertheless, he comes across as a man hamstrung by incompatible energies. The impossible situation in which he finds himself in terms of racial tensions at home has been well documented, but so too is he stuck between playing styles, stuck between youth and experience, between chest-beating and the virtues of humility.
He needs to keep his squad’s morale up, as well as his own - hence: “They say to win a World Cup you have to win seven games, but – and I know this might not be the time to make a joke – we have to win only six now. If we stand together and play to our strengths, back our captain, I know we can still do it. It’ll be one of the best turnarounds in the world.”
He also clearly feels it is arrogance that has brought about this mess in the first place “By saying you’re a Springbok doesn’t mean you have a right just to win. That’s what these players sometimes forget. Sometimes as South Africans we don’t give respect to the rest of the world.”
The hair shirts have been donned. Strauss, by way of exemplary illustration, will win his 50th cap on Saturday but has refused to run out ahead of his team-mates, as is his right. Meanwhile, the more expansive game the Boks have been nurturing, apparently with reluctance, will be shelved.
“There’s always a drive back home to play like other countries and move it and score tries,” Meyer said, “but the other countries are now playing more like us. We’re moving away from our strengths. Since we’ve been doing that we haven’t had a team in the semi-finals of Super rugby. I don’t want to point fingers at other coaches – I’ve got plenty of problems of my own – but I truly believe we should play the South African way. I’ve always believed that and I’ve always been criticised for that.”
South Africa are about to revert to type.
South Africa team to face Samoa at Villa Park on Saturday
Willie le Roux; JP Pietersen, Jean de Villiers (capt), Damian de Allende, Bryan Habana; Handre Pollard, Fourie du Preez; Tendai Mtawarira, Adriaan Strauss, Jannie du Plessis, Eben Etzebeth, Victor Matfield, Francois Louw, Schalk Burger, Duane Vermeulen. Replacements Schalk Brits, Trevor Nyakane, Frans Malherbe, Lood de Jager, Siya Kolisi, Ruan Pienaar, Pat Lambie, Jesse Kriel.
