Springboks want ‘world champion’ image after tomorrow’s ‘test’

Press, 31 May 1986, Page 80

Springboks want ‘world champion’ image after tomorrow’s ‘test’

From

DON CAMERON,

in Johannesburg

You would almost think that some rugby Armageddon will be reached on Ellis Park, Johannesburg, tomorrow morning when the touring Cavaliers play the fourth match against the Springboks and complete their rather bizarre tour of South Africa.

Some 70,000 South Africans will pour into this giant crucible convinced that by the end the Springboks will be victors, champions of the world — that there will be forged one of the great victories of their favourite game.

For the Cavaliers there can be no similar ambition. This may be the last playing action in their expedition, but certainly not the last reaction. They are 1-2 down in the series and a third loss tomorrow will do their cause at home no good at all.

Last week-end their preparation for Loftus Versfeld was ruined on the morning of the match by the clatter and noise of a band and other celebrations in their hotel.

Now, as they prepare to go to the Doomfontein Superbowl they are entangled in legal arguments whether or not they will sign the papers offered them by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union.

So the Cavaliers must approach this last match as some desperate mission.

Forty-eight hours before they are already taking on the stony-faced

look that touring All Blacks carry into the preparation for the really big matches. Round them the wags are cracking jokes whether the Cavaliers should be called the All Blacks or Cavablacks or even the Balaklavas, just as the South African players are being dubbed the Toyoboks after their substantial sponsorship by Toyota. However, the humour is probably lost on both teams.

The Springboks are supremely confident, perhaps too much so. They think of the last 10 minutes at Loftus which brought them 15 points to nil, and forget the previous 70 minutes which was contained at 18 points all.

Naas Botha, their kicking captain, is promising a feast of running rugby from his powerful backs, will the leopard change his spots quite so quickly? Not likely. Botha will continue to pepper the posts.

The critical moment should come if Botha also decides to pepper Robbie Deans, the Cavaliers fullback, with immense up-

and-unders. Kieran Crowley caught those bravely but there is the suggestion, and the Springboks are aware of it, that since his knee injury two years ago Deans has lost some of his old confidence and solidity under the high ball. If Deans fails the Cavaliers will be in serious trouble. Should this also coincide with an injury to Deans the Cavaliers may have to pull Grant Fox from the reserves bench, rather than Crowley. Fox is by far the inform goal-kicker at the moment, and placing him at full-back would be worth the risk.

South Africans have been staggered at the omission of Fox, but the placing of Wayne Smith inside his Canterbury team-mates, Warwick Taylor, Victor Simpson, Craig Green and Deans, does give the back-line rather more potential for defensive combination and attacking ability. The local people seem to think that Botha only has to give the ball to Danie Gerber and he will disappear through a gap and up the field.

So the Springboks may receive a nasty surprise if the Canterbury midfield weld together as solidly as they used to do for Canterbury in the high-pres-sure world of Ranfurly Shield matches.

The Cavaliers, with

Steve McDowell and Alan Whetton joining the side, have opted for more mobility. Times have changed. In the past it would have seemed essential that a couple of hard-headed “enforcers" such as Mark Shaw and John Ashworth would have been necessary insurance against the hard, uncompromising men of the Springbok pack. Fortunately there has been little nasty forward play in this series, not too much aimed at the jugular, apart from Uli Schmidt’s dispatching of Dave Loveridge last weekend.

The Cavaliers have handled this impossibly hard itinerary very well, with the proviso that the hard edge has been worn away from Springbok forward play. They have enough fitness and ambition for one last desperate charge tomorrow. Should they win they will not reshape the history books and, in passing, it will be curious to find where these tour games will be placed in the annals of first-class rugby.

However, a Cavaliers victory would give them a more comfortable cushion to land on when, after scattering about the world next week-end, they eventually return home. Otherwise they will find bare boards inside the back door.