Dirty Harry makes his day and becomes Flash Harry

By MIKE GREENAWAY

A month ago, South African coach Harry Viljoen was disdainfully referred to as Dirty Harry by a public outraged by home losses to France and New Zealand.

The situation rapidly deteriorated when respected forwards coach Andre Markgraaff did his best impersonation of a rodent departing a crippled ship and South Africa's best player last year, Rassie Erasmus, was dumped. Then Viljoen further dirtied his name in the eyes of the public when he ripped the captaincy reins from popular Andre Vos and thrust them into the hands of Bobby Skinstad.

Skinstad is an astonishingly gifted player, who sadly has been dogged by injury and undeserved controversy since that fateful evening in 1999 when he pranged his car after a less than cordial chat with Justin Marshall in a Cape Town pub.

The morale of the rugby public had not been so low since Nick Mallett torpedoed South Africa's World Cup campaign by dropping captain Gary Teichmann three months before the event, replacing him with the still-injured Skinstad.

And so the sorry procession moved to Loftus Versfeld where the cocky world-champion Wallabies lay in wait. Talk before the game was that Rudolf Straeuli of the Sharks would be coaching the Boks before the end of the season. The noose was around Dirty Harry's neck, the executioner awaited the signal ...

And then "the Process", as Viljoen has been calling it, kicked in. The Wallabies were made to look mortal by a rejuvenated Bok pack, and the stars of the show were the beneficiaries of selections that had seemed so bizarre to the public.

Skinstad was sensational both as a player and captain. Vos, unburdened by leadership and moved from No 8 to flank, was the best player on the park. New fullback Conrad Jantjes was such a success that he earned an invite to lunch with Nelson Mandela.

The pack fired, and the heroic defensive effort proved that the spirit and unity in the team were the best since the Tri-Nations-winning days of 1998, when Mallett practised participative management and not the despotism of his later rule.

The signs that the disaster of June and last month were part of a legitimate, calculated "process" gained full credence when the invincibility of the Wallabies took a further knock in Perth.

A forgiving public has now exchanged Dirty for Flash, and Viljoen is now regarded as a visionary whose lateral thinking has at last turned the tide for the Boks.

The Australian coaches controversially hired by Viljoen are producing the goods, Skinstad's natural ebullience radiates through a happy team who are now armed with the most priceless commodity in sport - self-belief.

Markgraaff and Erasmus are forgotten. In fact, some Bok players claim the pack are firing because they are unhindered by Markgraaff and his dinosaur strategies.

Viljoen's "replacement" for Markgraaff was a masterstroke - he has pretty much got the forwards to coach themselves.

What is any coach going to teach Mark Andrews about lineout play?

Who in South Africa knows more about scrumming that Cobus Visagie?

Player empowerment is the Viljoen way. The Boks are finding that the enlightened practices that made Viljoen millions in business can succeed in sport.

Which brings us to tonight's game. Can the Boks win in New Zealand for the first time since 1998, that victory in Wellington being their sole triumph here since they won at the same venue in 1981?

History is not on South Africa's side, but then this team are one looking forward, not back.

Tri-Nations victories overseas are fashioned on courageous defence, unbreakable team spirit and a no-frills, low-risk approach. The Boks will not be found wanting.

* Mike Greenaway is rugby writer for the Natal Mercury and Sunday Tribune in Durban.