Rugby: Helter-skelter ride for Viljoen's Boks

By CHRIS HEWETT

LONDON - It is the best part of nine years since rugby's global community welcomed South Africa back into its embrace, years in which some of the sharpest and most generous sporting spirits in the Republic - Morne du Plessis, Nick Mallett, the late Kitch Christie - worked tirelessly to right the wrongs of history by casting aside the more grotesque shibboleths of Springbok tradition.

If these men broke the green-jerseyed mould, their most recent successor has spent the first few weeks of his Bok stewardship accelerating the process by hurling the pieces to the four winds.

Harry Viljoen is as different as different gets, and the differences were there for all to see in Cardiff last weekend; not only on the pitch, where the South Africans eschewed the percentage game demanded by the heavy conditions in favour of an extraordinarily high-risk strategy of keeping the ball alive at all costs, but also in the grandstand.

As a general rule, members of the Springbok governing class watch their Test matches in blazer and tie. Viljoen opted for something a little classier and a whole lot more expensive: a black leather number that was 100 per cent haute couture and zero per cent highveld. Danie Craven must have been rotating in his grave.

Had Viljoen's Boks suffered an early reverse during their breakneck romp around the western strongholds of the union game - Buenos Aires, Dublin and Cardiff in three weeks flat, with Twickenham to come this weekend - the whispering campaign would have been in full flow by now.

The South Africans have seen off more coaches than opponents since their return from isolation in 1992, so one more would not make much difference either way. But Viljoen has won his first three Tests, and victory over England this weekend would leave him virtually fireproof for the remaining 23 months of his contract.

Having accepted the invitation to succeed Mallett, who was driven out of office on trumped-up disciplinary charges by powerful forces at the South African Rugby Football Union, Viljoen had just six days to prepare for this tour.

A tall order? Not for a man who has spent his life doing things quickly.

Viljoen played provincial rugby for Transvaal before he was out of his teens, set up his own asset management business at 21, packed up playing rugby in his mid-20s, made the first of several millions shortly afterwards and coached three major sides - Transvaal, Natal and Western Province - to Currie Cup finals, on each occasion during his first season at the helm.

With that record, six days left him with time to kill.

Yet Viljoen did not feel able to make an early decision when the SARFU contacted him with their offer of high-profile employment.

"My wife Magda and I had always promised each other that when we hit 40, we would be in a position to do our own thing, to go where we wanted when we wanted," said the 41-year-old Viljoen. "We had just reached that stage when the Springbok job fell vacant. We were in Italy, in Positano, when the telephone call came. It was one hell of a phone call to get. Magda's first response was: 'Are you crazy? Do you really want this pressure?'

"So we talked about it for a long while, weighing up the consequences. It was only when my wife said she would support me whatever my decision that I closed the deal.

"I've been involved with rugby for as long as I can remember and I want to make this work, but if I fail, it's not the end of the world.

"I see this job as a great honour, but rugby is not my whole life; if SARFU want to get rid of me at any stage, you won't see me fighting them in the courts.

"The important thing from my perspective is that I stick to my beliefs. I don't want to finish with the Boks thinking'if only I'd done this, if only I hadn't done that'. I have clear ideas about how I want to go about this, both on and off the pitch, and I intend to follow my instincts."

While he cultivates an image as one of the more enigmatic figures in South African rugby circles, Viljoen has in reality played an influential role in many of the more significant developments back home.

He was close to Louis Luyt during those years when the good doctor treated the Springbok game as his private fiefdom: Luyt gave Viljoen his first big coaching break at Transvaal.

When Kerry Packer, the Australian media squillionaire with a penchant for bankrolling sporting breakaway movements, attempted to lure the world's best rugby players into a professional circus in 1995, Viljoen was one of his enticers-in-chief. Some of the crucial, clandestine meetings took place at his home in the Sandton suburb of Johannesburg.

Even now he is sailing in the mainstream, Viljoen is as determined as ever to explore a good few uncharted tributaries along the way. He has, for instance, given Andre Markgraaff the task of beefing up a Springbok pack badly exposed on home turf by England last summer: a bold call if ever there was one.

Markgraaff remains a highly controversial figure, having succeeded the World Cup-winning Christie as national coach, brought Francois Pienaar's Test career to an abrupt conclusion, presided over the first home series defeat by New Zealand in Bok history - an offence of unimaginable seriousness - and resigned his post following a public scandal over racist remarks uttered in private, but uttered all the same.

"Andre is adding a great deal of value to our coaching," said Viljoen, who pieced together a 15-strong backroom team for this tour. "He has always been a superb operator, but I believe it suits him to be part of a properly organised group instead of being up there on his own.

"I want to put the right structures in place, to reach a point where I manage the coaches and ensure some sort of continuity. I see a parallel between myself and Clive Woodward, and certainly with Rod Macqueen in Australia. But I'm treading a fine line between maintaining the process" - among Viljoen's Boks, "process" is the word of the moment - "and winning rugby matches. It's not easy. Not easy at all."

Viljoen considers England to be clear favourites this weekend.

"We're losing a lot of possession by playing the way we are," he confessed, "and England are good enough to capitalise on that. We had 40 unbelieveable minutes against Argentina - the Pumas said they had never been forced to play at such a pace - and a decent 20-minute spell in Ireland. Against Wales, we struggled.

"Twickenham is, therefore, a big test for us. Whatever happens this weekend, people shouldn't measure us by what they see. I know where we are as a team and it's nowhere near where I want us to be."

South Africa could be pretty much anywhere by the time Viljoen has finished with them.

In many ways, they are playing a game entirely at odds with their tradition and alien to their natural inclination; by far the most remarkable statistic of this rugby year is that in Buenos Aires three weeks ago, the Boks went 70 minutes without kicking the ball from hand.

This much is certain, though: under Viljoen, the Percy Montgomerys and Breyten Paulses of this world will be given every conceivable opportunity to indulge their wildest rugby fantasies. It will be an interesting couple of years, for sure.