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There is hope for the Boks against this very good Lions side

GAVIN RICH

The Springboks are under pressure going into the second Test against the British and Irish Lions. Not because of decisions made by TV match official Marius Jonker or referee Nic Berry, but because they were outplayed in the first game by a team that was better on the day.

The phrase “on the day” is the operative one. There were enough good things from the Boks in their first big Test match in nearly 21 months to suggest that once they’ve shaken off some rust, they could be as formidable as they were when they left off at the 2019 World Cup.

It is just a question of how quickly they get their full match fitness back and how they respond to the questions posed by the Lions.

The latter refers mostly to their aerial game, for that was where they were most exposed. Yet it was an aspect that was good in the first half when they had energy.

The turning point was the first contestable kick of the second half, when Willie le Roux and Kwagga Smith let a ball bounce and the Lions capitalised by forcing a turnover penalty that set up the line-out from which they scored their try.

The Lions came back onto the field pumped up and motivated, and given the Boks’ lack of recent international rugby, the third quarter was always going to be targeted by the Lions for a tempo lift.

Just as it was when the Lions played a shadow Bok team masquerading as SA A 10 days earlier.

In that game the Boks clung on to their lead, but this time they couldn’t because they were outkicked, out-thought, outplayed and out-strategised. And if there is such a word, they were out-energised too. Those can be fixed by good coaching, which the Boks have, and just by getting more game time.

Perhaps there are a few selection switches that can also be made — the Bomb Squad is not really a proper bomb squad if the split on the bench is not 6/2, meaning six forwards and two backs. And Marco van Staden covering loose-forward, or better still Marcell Coetzee, makes more sense than Rynhardt Elstadt doing that job. Hopefully Duane Vermeulen is fit too.

Yes, some of the 50/50 calls went against the Boks, but to dwell on that would completely miss the point of what the Boks need to react to over the next six days, or they face the prospect of going 2-0 down.

From the perspective of where the Boks and SA rugby stand after the first Test, my reaction to the defeat is starkly different to what it was when the 1997 Boks lost their first Test, also in Cape Town. I have a clear recollection of the damning headlines of the newspaper that I worked for then hitting me at every news stand as I passed through the airport the next morning for the flight to Durban, where the next Test was to be played.

It was all doom and gloom and it had taken me just one game to decide Carel du Plessis was no Bok coach. But those were different times, Du Plessis had no experience, and that was not a good era for Lions rugby. Northern hemisphere rugby was in a mess, as evidenced by how the Boks, when Nick Mallett took over for the November tour, scored record wins at Parc des Princes (Paris), Twickenham and Edinburgh.

Northern hemisphere rugby is a lot stronger 24 years later. While some of Lions coach Warren Gatland’s selections could be quibbled with, the group he has playing for him is a prodigiously talented one and is drawn from nations that are now capable of mixing it with the southern hemisphere teams.

Those who predicted a 3-0 series whitewash for the Boks had their reasons for doing so, but that was never a realistic prospect. You know what they say about investments that are based on hope? Maybe this was the same thing.

The Boks went into the series up against it after not playing for so long, but more than that, this era of Lions is a strong one. We have to go back to the early 1970s for when the Lions were last as consistently successful as they have been since their last series loss here in 2009.

It is why, if the seemingly unthinkable happens and the Boks do lose on Saturday, we shouldn’t be rushing to don the sackcloth that represents mourning. Beating the Lions these days is the achievement that it used to be for them. Just ask the All Blacks, who were held to a draw four years ago.

Yet there is hope for South Africans to cling to. It is going to take a mighty effort from the Boks to win the series from here, and history is against them. But they made a similar calamitous start to their 2019 World Cup campaign. And we know how that story ended.

SPORT

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2021-07-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://timesmedia2.pressreader.com/article/281960315781249

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