Ken Borland

The impending series against the British and Irish Lions may be at the forefront of most rugby fans’ minds in South Africa at present, but the Springboks said on Thursday that their full attention is on Georgia at the moment ahead of the first Test at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

While Georgia are ranked 12^th in the world and it would be close to apocalyptic for the world champions to lose to them, Springbok captain Siya Kolisi said the match goes beyond just being a dress rehearsal for the Lions series. But he did acknowledge pretty much the same tried-and-tested game-plan that won the World Cup will be used against the Lions, and will be fine-tuned against the Lelos.

“First of all we want to win and then we want to make sure our plans and systems are working. We’re not looking that far ahead to the Lions series. Our game-plan will not change, although there are a few tweaks here and there. Of course we will bring the same physicality and hard work, the things you don’t need talent for. We want to do all we can in the system, but the coaches also want us to be able to express ourselves.

“We need to make sure it all comes together on the field, the focus is on coming together as a group and making sure we’re ready for when the time comes for the Lions series. We haven’t played in 20 months so we can’t be watching out for the games after Georgia now, we have to focus on our system and our game-plan. And we always give every opposition everything we can,” Kolisi said on Thursday.

Backline coach Mzwandile Stick said while they were eager for the players to express their individual talents, the Springboks will always call on their physicality as the starting point of their efforts.

“Certain things never change in rugby like playing between four lines and having 15 starters and eight on the bench, and likewise we will never neglect our physical side. It’s part of our DNA. Normally we have big, physical forwards who can really dominate the collisions. That area will be a challenge on Friday because Georgia have a lot of pride in their physical game.

“They have strong set-pieces and we know it’s going to be a physical challenge. But we also always try to empower the players to express themselves. Guys like Rosko Specman and Aphelele Fassi have x-factor and you can’t tell them not to step when they get the ball. Winning the World Cup was special for us, but now we are starting from scratch again,” Stick said.

Probably only the most ardent of South African rugby fans will know the name Dugald Macdonald, but he is Springbok number 470 having first slipped the famous Green and Gold jersey over his head in a third-floor room of the President Hotel in Sea Point, on 7 June 1974, while a typical Cape Town cold front splattered rain on to the balcony outside.

Macdonald would wear the jersey that had captured his imagination only once in a Test match, and that was actually a fortnight later when he played in the second Test against the British Lions at Loftus Versfeld. That’s because he was a reserve for the first Test at Newlands, and in those days the replacements sat in the stadium because the ‘bench’ was hardly ever used.

In a disastrous 3-0 series loss for the Springboks, he was destined to become one of the unfortunate one-Test wonders as the national selectors panicked and chose 36 different players for the four Tests, the final match in Johannesburg being drawn. According to veteran rugby writer John Bishop, who covered the entire tour, “Dugald should have been there from start to finish, he was one hell of a player. One of those guys who were simply forgotten about in the chaos of the 1974 tour, a powerful number eight with excellent ball skills. He should have been a Bok great”.

Macdonald has just released a book about the whole experience – the series being one of the most traumatic in South African rugby – called Ja-Nee. It is an engrossing look into the past, a study in how the mentality of Springbok rugby was built and how those attitudes still influence it today, but as with all great writing, it also brings applications and warnings for the future.

And it’s not just about rugby either. It provides a fascinating snapshot of White South African life in the 1970s. It is evocative, humorous and thought-provoking all at the same time.

The sun was shining brightly on that midwinter’s day in Pretoria, but Macdonald makes a decent argument for the Springboks not so much being panicky as arrogant. They were convinced that the Lions could not possibly be better than them and a few changes would sort out their scrum and allow them to dominate possession.

It’s a recurring story in our rugby: Back in 1992 when we returned from isolation and expected to still be better than Australia and New Zealand because “the Currie Cup is the strongest competition in the world” and instead lost both Tests comfortably. And then just last week the Bulls travelled from Pretoria to Italy, everyone back home confident that they would be returning from their jaunt with the Rainbow Cup, only to be played off the park by Benetton Treviso.

When South African rugby retreats into the laager mentality, we tend to become dangerously insular whenever we have been cut off from international trends.

Macdonald was not your typical Springbok of the 1970s, he was a city boy, schooled in Cape Town, he was an Oxford Blue and also played for Parma in Italy and Toulouse in France. Some might say paranoid 1970s South Africa was never likely to give him many more than one Test cap.

This broader world view has allowed him to identify an over-reliance on physicality as being a possible albatross around the necks of the current world champions, who have not played since outmuscling England in the World Cup final in Japan in November 2019. While the Springboks have been inactive, the rest of the world has been plotting.

“If we understood the roots of South African rugby then we’ll know why physicality has actually been responsible for many of our defeats. I fear we are winding up for another one because physicality is all the Lions are talking about. But if we don’t have technique and lucidity, physicality can only get you so far.

“Whenever we have just played inklim rugby it has been the beginning of the end, it’s been a problem down the years, and the same thing is growing again. Physicality is great at the right time and in the right place, but so much thought needs to go into it otherwise it’s helluva easy to get carried away. Fortunately we have really good leaders in the game now,” Macdonald told me.

*Ja-Nee is published by Flyleaf Publishing and is widely available in bookstores and online.

Ripped apart by Benetton Treviso on one of the most frustrating days in Bulls history, coach Jake White decried the “arrogance” of South African rugby that saw most pundits and fans expecting the local champions to just rock up in Europe and win the Rainbow Cup final.

The Bulls were meant to be triumphant forerunners of a wave of South African teams entering and dominating European competition via the new United Rugby Championship, but instead there will now be many questions overseas as to what our teams are going to add to the proud Celtic league.

Ponderous, one-dimensional and error-prone in comparison with an impressive Benetton side that produced some dazzling rugby, the Bulls were hammered 35-8.

“It would be a bit arrogant to think that we could just arrive in Italy and beat a club side and then fly home. Sometimes as a coach you just have to take it, tactically Benetton were very smart and there was no one area where we stamped our mark, we were a bit short in everything. But I’m a realist and that’s the first time many of this team felt pressure like that.

“Benetton have a lot of experienced Test players, they’ve played against England at Twickenham and France in Paris, and when you get them here at home, they can play. We looked inexperienced and we can blame that, the heat or the crowd, but at the end of the day we got it wrong. It was up to us to find a way, to do things differently,” White said.

While the Bulls have basically physically-dominated everyone back at home, it is clear that they play a more highbrow form of rugby in Europe and the South African teams are going to have to adapt very quickly. South Africa’s dominant team have just been handed a whipping by a team, impressive as they were on the day, no-one in Europe seriously thinks is better than big guns Leinster, Munster and Ulster, never mind the Champions Cup teams.

“It’s a completely different game up North and Benetton are a well-coached team who played really well. We did not enjoy it today being convincingly beaten, but we have got to find our feet. Hopefully this loss makes us so much better and I’m glad for the opportunity to grow as a team. Our youngsters have now seen that it’s a completely different game up here.

“To the other South African teams I would say ‘Don’t come here thinking it’s the same as what you’re used to’. It’s a totally different sort of defence and attack that you play against, homework and analysis is going to be so important. Back home we know the teams and players and we thought we have been clinical there, but we have never been punished for not kicking the ball out like we were here,” White admitted.

Benetton Treviso, the Bulls’ opponents in the Rainbow Cup final on Saturday, may have gone through the European leg of the competition unbeaten, but it is obvious they are a dark-horse club which is an unknown quantity for most South African rugby fans.

The vagaries of the European competition format and the resting of the big guns by clubs like Leinster, Munster and Ulster obviously helped Benetton, who failed to win a game in the preceding season of the Pro14 competition.

They are under the coaching of New Zealander Kieran Crowley, and it is his last game in charge before he becomes head coach of the Italian national side, replacing South African Franco Smith, who is moving to the position of head of high performance. The Benetton players will obviously be keen to send him off on a winning note.

Smith himself played for Benetton, and there is a history of South African involvement at the club. Fellow Springbok Marco Wentzel also pulled on the green jersey of Treviso, as did lock Corniel van Zyl. Michael Lynagh and John Kirwan are the two most famous former players of the 89-year-old club.

Former Stormers and SA A scrumhalf Dewaldt Duvenhage is the current captain of Benetton, who also boast a pair of former Bulls locks in Irne Herbst and Eli Snyman, a former Bulls hooker in Corniel Els and Cradock-born loose forward Braam Steyn, who has played 44 times for Italy.

Second-choice flyhalf Tommaso Allan is the nephew of former Sharks and Springbok hooker John Allan.

In terms of style of play, Benetton are fond of scrummaging and using their physical defence to force turnovers, from which they are quick to counter-attack. They also have a reliable goalkicker in first-choice flyhalf Paolo Garbisi.

So they play a style of rugby that the Bulls themselves favour, although most people are expecting the visitors to be more proficient at it than their Italian hosts. But Benetton did push Montpellier, who went on to win the competition, all the way in their European Challenge Cup quarterfinal in April, losing by just six points.

Benetton will also have a crowd of 1000 spurring them on in the Stadio Monigo, which was chosen as the venue for the final before they qualified, but just happens to be their home stadium.