Ken Borland

Some observers may be wondering why the SA A team to take on the British and Irish Lions in Cape Town on Wednesday night is basically a shadow Springbok Test side – and the reason is simple: every opportunity for the national team to play together is like gold at the moment.

The Springboks have only played the one Test against Georgia in the 20 months since winning the 219 World Cup and even that game only really shook off the rust. The world champions are still a long way off the tight, clinical unit that triumphed in Japan.

With the second Test against Georgia cancelled, the SA A match is the last opportunity to warm up before the first Test against the Lions on July 24, which is why director of rugby Rassie Erasmus named a team with a dozen players who featured in the World Cup final. Of the SA A side. The vast majority of the 23-man squad is expected to line up for the first Test against the tourists.

“We are working towards the first Test, the guys need playing opportunities, they need to get game-time. We have been struggling for that opportunity. The biggest goal is always that first Test and we need the World Cup guys to get good minutes under their belt, especially guys like Lukhanyo Am and Faf de Klerk, who did not play against Georgia.

“We are not where we were at the 2019 World Cup final and we will appreciate any opportunity for any practice game, I see there have even been rumours over us playing against the Bulls on Saturday. It’s no longer about what we have done in the past, it’s time now to write a new script and we couldn’t ask for a better team to do it against than the Lions,” assistant coach Mzwandile Stick said on Tuesday.

While the Springboks have been making sure they train with Test match intensity, it’s the match fitness – the big collisions against opponents who really want to smash you rather than your team-mates; the collisions that cause the bruises that these players wear with honour like the finest jewellery – that needs to be sharpened.

“We will see how we are placed on the physical side tomorrow,” captain Am said on Tuesday afternoon.

For Springbok captain Siya Kolisi, Test rugby is like a drug that he cannot get enough of, while for backline coach Mzwandile Stick, the forthcoming series against the British and Irish Lions is the chance to chase memories for the players.

Kolisi’s gratification will finally come on Friday evening when he leads the Springboks out against Georgia in their warm-up Test at Loftus Versfeld, ending a 20-month wait since he last donned the Green and Gold and lifted the greatest prize of them all – the World Cup trophy.

“Once you’ve tasted it you don’t want to stop. It’s the best in South Africa against the best from elsewhere in the world. Just the intensity in training as well, it’s double what you experience back at your union and you just know that you cannot switch off or get a big head otherwise you will get left behind. You learn a lot about yourself in this environment,” Kolisi said on the eve of his return to the international stage.

The excitement ahead of taking on Georgia, ranked No.12 in the world, is going to at least double when the Springboks approach the main course: three Tests against the British and Irish Lions that only come along every 12 years.

Stick, a former Springbok Sevens captain who won the World Series, knows what it feels like just to play against the Lions in a tour game, having appeared for the Southern Kings against the famous tourists in Port Elizabeth in 2009.

“It’s a chance to build new memories. The Lions are a massive challenge and we are really excited. The players have one opportunity to create something special. I played against the Lions in 2009 and it was a challenge every second. I came on at blindside wing and I just wanted to get in the game so badly that I tried to stand in the defensive line at flyhalf.

“But Ronan O’Gara was so smart and he just kicked the ball over my head. I was stupid and the players mustn’t be like me. They have to play together as a team. Like against Georgia who we respect as a tough side – we will be punished if we don’t pitch up,” Stick said.

The two teams also always have a chat with the referee before a Test match and in this case Stick was reunited with an old opponent from his Sevens days in Scotland’s Mike Adamson.

Adamson will be blowing just his second Test match after officiating in the England versus Italy Six Nations match earlier this year. He has also taken the whistle in Currie Cup games before.

A flyhalf in XVs, he was a top-class Sevens exponent who was Scotland’s Sevens Player of the Season in 2006/7.

Like migrant birds flying from their wintering grounds to their summer breeding spots, the Bulls find themselves in a very warm and muggy Treviso and they are hoping to bring the heat and catch Benetton by surprise in their Rainbow Cup final at the Stadio Monigo on Saturday evening.

Having swept all before them in South Africa over the last year, the Bulls have gone to Italy as the winners of the southern leg of the competition, to take on the European winners, a Benetton side that have surprised all and sundry with their resurgence in the last couple of months.

The last trophy presentation the Bulls enjoyed was when they won the Currie Cup at the height of our summer, and their winter work has involved finishing top of the franchises involved in the Rainbow Cup. But the temperature is expected to rise to above 30⁰ on Saturday in north-eastern Italy, so that will take some adapting to. Coach Jake White said though that he hoped the intensity of the Bulls’ play will force Benetton to do some adapting of their own.

“The nice thing is we played through the summer in South Africa so we’re used to weather like this. I hope we can play with the same tempo and pace that we did then and hopefully that surprises Benetton. We’ve had a year of really tough derby rugby, so hopefully that helps us as well. Having been together as a team for a lot longer now, our ball-in-play time has also improved and we’ve seen the effect of that.

“But Benetton have done really well, they’re the only unbeaten side, they beat Connacht, who beat Munster who had just beaten Leinster. Plus Benetton are playing at home while we have to adapt to travel, and 11 of their team started for Italy against Scotland not that long ago, so we are up against international players. Now that we’re in the Northern Hemisphere, it will be good to measure ourselves,” White said on Friday.

While the Bulls are breaking new ground for South African rugby, they do have some experience in the kitty of what to expect in the form of captain Marcell Coetzee and lock Jan Uys, who have both played in Italy before.

“It’s fantastic to have Marcell’s experience, he played here for Ulster, they won by three points and it was a struggle. Jan Uys also played in this competition, in Italy, for Brive and that experience is a must-have, especially with no Duane Vermeulen, Morne Steyn, Marco van Staden and Arno Botha. When I was coaching in France, we played against a couple of Italian sides and they do present a bit of a different package in terms of strategy,” White said.

“It’s actually the first time I have experienced so much heat in Europe, but there are no excuses, we have to adapt if we want to be champions,” Coetzee said. “I told the players we will need to control our emotional levels, we need to be relaxed and calm, but we are going to be in some dark places and then it’s about who wants it more. Fortunately this team has been playing finals and winning … ”

Keegan Petersen and Kyle Verreynne may have felt like they were frozen out of the Test team given how long they have had to wait for their chance, but like London Buses two gaps have come along at the same time and they have both made their debut in the first Test between South Africa and the West Indies at St Lucia.

Petersen has been part of the squad since December 2019 and Verreynne was first called up in ODI cricket a couple of months later. They have both come through the fertile ground of Western Cape cricket, although Petersen comes from the Boland and Verreynne hails from Wynberg Boys High School and Western Province Schools.

With the West Indies winning the toss and choosing to bat first, they will be hoping the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium pitch becomes nice and flat as they look to make their mark in a South African batting line-up that has lost a vast amount of experience in the last few years. Petersen is the replacement for retired former captain Faf du Plessis and Verreynne gets his chance due to new vice-captain Temba Bavuma having a hip injury.

The 27-year-old Petersen has been pretty much permanently piling on the runs in franchise cricket in the last four seasons. In that time he has not once averaged less than 44 and has posted eight centuries in 39 matches for the Knights and Dolphins, who he joined last season. He left the Cape Cobras in 2017 due to limited opportunities, the elegant right-hander playing only seven matches for them.

While there has been disappointment in some quarters that Verreynne has had to wait until now for his Test debut, as the back-up wicketkeeper to Quinton de Kock his chances are always going to be limited. But four hundreds and 16 fifties in 32 matches for the Cobras are not to be scoffed at, and many of those big innings have come when the Cobras have been struggling and conditions are hard.

The 24-year-old embodies the grit and determination so many South African middle-order batsmen are famous for and he will want to lift what has been a disappointing output by the Proteas batsmen recently.