South Africa flew into London on Sunday muttering darkly about redressing the defeat by Ireland when they meet England and openly suggesting this tour could be make or break for some players even 11 months out from the World Cup.
The Springboks were undone by the potent cocktail of Irish passion and cussedness, the precision boot of Jonny Sexton and rain – just the kind of slippery conditions they are likely to encounter when they meet Scotland at St James’ Park, Newcastle, or Samoa in Birmingham next autumn. “We just made too many mistakes…no excuses there,” said the coach, Heyneke Meyer, for whom Saturday was his first defeat in the northern hemisphere as Springboks coach.
Everything seemed to be going well, especially after recently beating New Zealand, the best side in the world. South Africa had even found a young fly-half capable of adding flair to the traditional Bok strength of a physical pack.
However, Handré Pollard, 20, the architect of victory over the All Blacks, as well as scorer of two tries, came a poor second to Sexton, who spent the match proving to his paymasters what a good deal they had done in buying him back from France. From the opening moments when the fly-half’s first kick landed on Bryan Habana and a second caused the full-back Willie le Roux the first of his many problems, South Africa alarm bells were ringing and Pollard got something of a reproach from his coach for not handling the conditions.
“You can’t play Championship rugby [the Rugby Championship] away from home. You have to adapt to conditions and we didn’t do that,” said Meyer, who had seen Pollard turn down three kicks at goal in the hope of something better and generally be over ambitious with his game management.
“We have never played well this year in wet conditions. You have to go back to basics, be more astute tactically. We will learn from this and at the end of these four games we’ll know where we stand, which guys can cope and which guys can’t,” Meyer said. “We have to get balance in our side. It’s great to score tries but, if the game doesn’t open up, it’s usually an arm wrestle. You have to look after the ball.
“Call it a lack of concentration, call it a lack of coaching, call it whatever you want but we have to catch better. The strange thing is the three training sessions we had before the match were probably the best I’ve had since becoming the Bok coach.”
What happens in training this week during preparations for the England Test was a subject tackled by Meyer’s captain Jean de Villiers, presumably the guy who could have overruled Pollard’s ambition in favour of something more conservative and more Bok. “We’ll take it on the chin, we’ll be hard on each other for a couple of days,” De Villiers said, “then we’ll start focusing on the next game.”
If Sir Ian McGeechan, the former Lions coach, is right in saying a wounded Springbok is the most dangerous Springbok, then England will have to look out although Saturday’s weather forecast for Twickenham suggests more showers.
Either way, Meyer is convinced 11 months out is too soon to start worrying about the World Cup. “You don’t look that far ahead,” said the former Leicester coach. “You learn game from game and this is a really important tour for us because it will show what’s lacking in the game plan. Seven games is a lot of rugby before the World Cup starts but it’s important for me that we know exactly where we stand after this tour.”
Ireland’s coach, Joe Schmidt, meanwhile enhanced his reputation by introducing a new centre partnership who seemed to understand more about wet-weather rugby than anyone facing them.
Robbie Henshaw, playing his second Test in the No12 shirt, alongside Jared Payne, a New Zealander making his debut for his adoptive country, may not be together next week even if Payne’s foot mends in time for the Munster man to face Georgia. However he had a decent audition for the No13 shirt Brian O’Driscoll wore 133 times.
Ireland Kearney (Jones, 75); Bowe, Payne (Reddan, 79), Henshaw, Zebo; Sexton (Madigan, 75), Murray; McGrath (Kilcoyle, 73), Cronin (R Strauss, 60), Ross (Ah You, 73), Toner, O’Connell (capt), O’Mahony (O’Donnell, 71), Henry, Ruddock.
Tries Ruddock, Bowe. Cons Sexton 2. Pens Sexton 4, Madigan .
South Africa Le Roux; Hendricks (Pietersen, 50), Serfontein, De Villiers (capt), Habana; Pollard (Lambie, 66), Hougaard (Reinach, 57); Mtawarira (Nyakane, 66), B du Plessis (A Strauss, 52), J du Plessis (Oosthuizen, 71), Etzebeth (Botha, 65), Matfield, Coetzee, Mohoje (Burger, 47), Vermeulen.
Tries Coetzee, Pietersen. Con Pollard. Pen Pollard.
Sin-bin A Strauss 66
Referee Romain Poite (Fr). Att 51,000.
