Boks of tricks now just bits and pieces

Springbok flanker Solly Tyibilika, with coach Jake White in Wellington yesterday. Picture / Mark Mitchell

WELLINGTON - Hidden away within the confines of the All Blacks' luxury downtown Wellington hotel yesterday was a sleek health club offering relaxation or sports massages, facials or a one-hour Hot Oil Elixir Fusion. But that's for the All Blacks. They're on top of the world right now.

All the Springboks can anticipate is an 80-minute session on Saturday night that definitely won't offer anything to do with relaxation. There will be no massaging away of stresses and strains. Especially not with the starting line-up they've selected

The ravages of injuries, loss of form and a disastrous result against Australia last weekend are writ large upon this side.

But what it might do is restore some pride to South African rugby ranks. And in a sense, that has become of more pressing importance than even winning the match. Of course, the latter would achieve the former.

But unless Graham Henry and his men have, unbeknown to all of us, quietly established a charity aimed at handing gifts to South African rugby men, that is unlikely to happen.

This is a Springbok team cobbled together amid adverse circumstances. Seven members of the side Jake White would probably choose as his first choice for the World Cup are missing - Schalk Burger, Bakkies Botha, Gurthro Steenkamp, Jean de Villiers, Ashwin Willemse, Marius Joubert and Joe van Niekerk.

Thus, we are confronted by a collection of ambitious wannabes, rank outsiders, hitherto believed no-hopers and, in the case of the first five-eighths, a bloke called A. N. Other who just might metamorphose into Butch James or Meyer Bosman by tea-time on Saturday.

This is not how White would have seen his Tri-Nations unfolding.

Yet, as with all adversity, opportunity beckons for some. Most especially in the back row, which has received rather more than a simple facial.

Solly Tyibilika is invited (cruel word) to pursue his World Cup ambitions in the face of Richie McCaw, unarguably the world's finest at his trade. Jacques Cronje's grunt and grind gets an outing at the expense of van Niekerk.

Re-introducing Tyibilika as the genuine open-side scavenger against Scotland in Durban might have been kinder. But from the way the young man was talking about the challenge yesterday, he will at least ensure McCaw gets a ride for his money.

Nothing changes at threequarter, principally because nothing much else is available. But the halves are culled. Jaco van der Westhuyzen disappears, Ricky Januarie retreats to the bench. Fourie Du Preez will steady the ship, but it's difficult to assess what we can expect from Bosman or James.

At 27, he hardly represents Springbok rugby's youth policy. Bosman does and so, bearing in mind Tyibilika's challenge, the youngsters justify inclusion.

White wants his players to stand up and be counted. We know James would but we might learn more about Bosman under such circumstances.

It's good to see Akona Ndungane retained but, at the other end of the human time frame, you wonder how much longer Os du Randt can play as first choice in every match. This will be five on the roll so far this season. Isn't it a crime to wear out the old ones first?

Collectively, the sum of the parts of this Springbok team may not appear to amount to anything remotely likely to halt the New Zealand juggernaut. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London.