Ken Borland

Sharks scrumhalf Cobus Reinach has scored some tremendous individual tries in the last year, but the newest member of the Springbok squad is adamant that those are not planned and he has just had the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time.

“The tries have been a team effort, I just finished them off,” Reinach said with a modesty that was almost as impressive as some of the moments of solo brilliance he has dazzled with for the Sharks.

“It’s never about me, for me it’s always about getting the ball out, getting quick ball for the team, which is very key to the way the Springboks want to play. I’ll never try and force a gap for myself,” he added.

Reinach is the son of the late Jaco Reinach, the last man to represent South Africa in both rugby and athletics. Jaco was the South African record-holder for the 400m (45.01) from April 1983 until 2011 when it was broken by LJ van Zyl, a three-time African champion and Olympian.

So it probably wasn’t a surprise that Cobus Reinach began his rugby career on the wing, but was moved to scrumhalf when he was deemed to be too small for the back three.

“I always played wing until U13 when I was told I was too small for that position – at all of 38kgs,” Reinach recalled.

“I had to adapt very quickly and I didn’t really have any role-models who were scrumhalves. So I used to watch George Gregan and Fourie du Preez a lot and copy what they did.”

The evergreen Du Preez is injured – out for the rest of the year – which has allowed Reinach to receive his first full call-up to the Springbok squad.

“It’s an exciting, amazing feeling to be around the Springboks. I’m having a good season, which helps, but the main part of being here is to learn. Fourie, Ruan Pienaar and Francois Hougaard are all world-class scrumhalves, but if you want to be the best, then you have to compete against the best,” Reinach said.

While the Sharks, with a conservative game plan and problems at flyhalf, often relied on Reinach’s individual brilliance to spark their attacking play, the Springboks have threats across the park and the 24-year-old knows he has to concentrate on slick service and the one area of his game that has shown signs of weakness – his tactical kicking.

“There are always areas to improve. My passing from both left and right hand is fine, but I’m working on my weak foot.

“At the Sharks, we have a big tactical kicking game and if it doesn’t go your way on the day then you’re in trouble. We weren’t good enough in the SuperRugby semi-final, but the Springboks don’t play the same type of rugby – they run a bit more and they kick and exit their own half differently,” Reinach said.

Reinach junior was just six years old when his father died in a car accident, aquaplaning off the road near Kroonstad and hitting a tree in January 1997, but it is clear Jaco’s legacy lives on strongly in his son.

Apart from being a world-class athlete, denied an international stage due to Apartheid, Jaco Reinach was an exceptional wing who was unfortunate to only play four times for the Springboks. He was at his peak in the mid-1980s, but that was the era of Ray Mordt and Michael and Carel du Plessis and he played in just one series – against the 1986 New Zealand Cavaliers. Reinach snr scored two tries, one of them a memorable effort from the halfway line in the 33-18 victory at Loftus Versfeld.

When Cobus makes his bow on the international stage (it will surely be sooner rather than later), it will be an emotional time for the Grey Bloem product.

“Even though he was not there, my dad was definitely the biggest influence on my career. I always wanted to follow in his footsteps. I watched the Battle of the Giants video of the Springboks’ series against the New Zealand Cavaliers over and over and just to see him run was brilliant. I think I’m quite quick but not as quick as him, especially not off the mark!

“When I saw my name in the Springbok squad, I was so happy. But I’m going to try and keep the emotion out of it until I get in the team. After I’ve played my first game, then I think I will be emotional,” Reinach said with refreshing candour.

There are a million different ways to play rugby and, while there is a hint of contrasting philosophies when it comes to Jake White and Heyneke Meyer, Reinach welcomes all the input at this early stage of his career.

“Every coach has his own idea of how to play, so I’ve picked up a few ideas along the way. That’s how my game will grow up, that’s how I will be able to do everything. With experience and game time, my decision-making will get better and better, but I also don’t want to lose my instinctive moves,” he said.

The instinctive moments of brilliance are what most people will notice; but the best teams have scrumhalves who also do the basics faultlessly, unnoticed, much like a wicketkeeper in cricket.

Scrumhalves need to have their fingers on the pulse of play, they dictate the tempo and flow of the game.

In Cobus Reinach, the Springboks have someone with the skills to grow into that role … with a bit of magic on the side.

Jean de Villiers knows he does not have many appearances left in the Springbok jersey, so the 33-year-old captain is absolutely determined to enjoy every moment remaining in the South African squad.

That same passion has been driving his rehab from a knee injury that kept him out of the Incoming Tours in June and, although he has not played a match since May 3, De Villiers is confident that he won’t have to miss any more Tests as the Springboks head into the Rugby Championship.

“The knee is good, it’s coming on nicely and I’ve been running for the last couple of weeks. It’s improved a lot and I had a full session yesterday [Tuesday], and it’s looking better than I thought it would, there’s no swelling.

“I’ve taken contact and my fitness is good because I’ve been doing lots of cardio. It’s now just a question of getting confidence back in my knee and then I’ll be 100%,” De Villiers said in midweek.

“But it’s never nice sitting on the side. I’m at the end of my career, I realise that’s pretty close, and I want to make whatever’s left of my rugby career as good as possible. You want to make sure you’ve given it your best shot when you hang up your boots.

“If this is my last 12 months with the Springboks then I want to make it great. It’s fantastic to be a part of such a great squad with such great talent and I’m very proud to be a leader in it.

“I’m going to make sure I enjoy the journey and the cherry on top will be the World Cup next year. Your injuries just make you appreciate your time in this game even more,” the father of two daughters said.

While the presence of so many veterans – Bakkies Botha, De Villiers, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis, Bryan Habana, Victor Matfield, Ruan Pienaar, Gurthro Steenkamp and Juan Smith were all involved in the 2007 World Cup triumph – curdles the breakfast milk of some Springbok fans, the captain insists that the presence of such seasoned internationals is a great strength.

“It’s very exciting to have such good experience and young guys with exceptional talent putting pressure on them for their places. It’s a good balance for us and you see how guys like Handre Pollard and Jan Serfontein played unbelievably well when they started in the incoming Tests.

“We’re in the ideal position to bring youngsters in … look at Lood de Jager playing with Victor Matfield. He knows that he has that experience next to him and that’s why guys like Juan Smith also add value. They’ve been through it all, they can tell the youngsters to ‘do it like this’.

“It speeds up the process of making inexperienced players experienced,” De Villiers pointed out.

South Africa’s most capped centre said the return of Toulon-based loose forward Smith, who has not played a Test since the end of 2010 due to what many felt was a career-ending achilles tendon injury, was particularly inspiring.

“Juan Smith – what a story! His career was ended prematurely and I remember him handing out our jerseys in Nelspruit last year. You could see the determination still in him, that he felt he still had a lot to give.

“He’s kept that hunger and he had a lot to prove even though many people had written him off. But he’s played wonderful rugby for Toulon and he’s a great player and person, with a great story to tell.

“He’s going to bring a lot of energy and put some of the youngsters in their place too!”

According to Springboks breakdown coach Richie Gray, South Africa had the best statistics in that crucial phase of play in last year’s Rugby Championship, but he fully expects the opposition this year to have made serious plans to dethrone them.

“At the end of the Rugby Championship last year, we came out with the best stats, in terms of retention and turnovers, but the breakdown is becoming more of a war every year.

“Every country we go to, the newspapers are always talking about the ‘battle of the breakdown’ and this year it will be even more so. Australia have really taken a step forward there judging by SuperRugby, but every team emphasises the breakdown. If something happens 140 times in a game then it’s got to be important and we have to dominate and be accurate there,” Gray said on Wednesday.

While Francois Louw will obviously figure extensively when it comes to the Springboks’ efforts to steal ball, protecting one’s own possession on attack is just as important. Because an openside flank can only hit every second or third ruck, the breakdown does become truly a team effort.

“Every player has to be equipped to do breakdown work and I work with both the individual and collectively to make sure we get it spot on every time in training.

“Just like the greatest defensive system won’t work if your players can’t tackle, so your attack will always be running against a brick wall if you’re taking four or five seconds to get the ball out of the breakdown.”

The Springboks, with their tall, bulky physiques, have had a reputation for being one-dimensional at the rucks – just running up and ramming a shoulder in to try and bully opposition off the ball. But Gray has certainly up-skilled them in this department.

“I can remember being told by leading Northern Hemisphere coaches like Jim Telfer that you never take on the Springboks at waist-height because they’ll smash you, but at knee-height because they’re big men who can’t bend down. But that’s an absolute myth, if they’re properly coached then South Africa have some phenomenal players at the breakdown. They have a great mentality and physicality, and we just need to add accuracy,” the Scotsman said.

One of Gray’s challenges at the moment is to sort out the mash of different breakdown strategies his players have returned with from all around the world – never mind the five SuperRugby franchises employing different methods, there are also the tactics of three different French clubs, two English and one from Northern Ireland to contend with.

“The players disappear all over the world and their clubs all have different philosophies when it comes to the breakdown. So we have to get to what is best for the Springboks; quick ball is best, but how do we get that?

“So I’ll implement a plan that is correct for this group and their different strengths and weaknesses. I’ll tweak it week-by-week and month-by-month and we don’t want to follow other teams, we want to lead, so we do a lot of analysis  to spot weaknesses in both ourselves and others,” Gray explained.

At least in the Rugby Championship, the breakdown is a far cleaner, better-policed phase of play; in the Northern Hemisphere, there are people clogging the aisles far too often.

“I was delighted with the way we changed our approach on the Northern Hemisphere tour last year. The breakdown is an absolute war over there, there are bodies all over the place, players rolling out on our side. There are just so many things going on and it was a huge step-up to cope with that.”

The Springboks’ first task will be to tame the Pumas and their tactics of tackling low to mow down the ball-carrier and then flooding the breakdown.

Michael Hooper and Richie McCaw will then be lying in wait.