RUGBY IRELAND v SOUTH AFRICA:HIGHLY DEFENSIVE, argumentative and slightly paranoid, South African coach Peter De Villiers brought his road show to Dublin yesterday.
A truly great season, even by the Springboks proud standards, is threatening to unravel around them, as nothing short of a convincing victory at Croke Park on Saturday and the 2009 European tour will be deemed a failure.
Defeats to Leicester, a tough yet inspirational French side and Saracens were somewhat atoned for in Italy on the weekend despite the normally flawless boot of Morne Steyn malfunctioning.
Winning the Lions Test series and then the Tri-Nations would be soured by defeat to the Northern Hemisphere champions and, in turn, place potentially career-ending pressure on De Villiers.
At times his own worst enemy, it is clear the Paarl resident never heard the phrase loose lips sink ships.
A story has been doing the rounds that an Irish member of the Lions party was primarily responsible for the lack of cordial relations between the competing players last summer. The question of bad blood was put to De Villiers.
“Well, I think the bad blood was only with you guys. There was no bad blood with us. We extended to them, like we do in all our other games, to have the opposing team come to our dressing-room (post match) and we provide them with a beer or two so the guys could mingle. They never accepted that invitation.
“I don’t think there was anything extra ordinary on the field of play that could cause bad blood. Again, when you stand and look at things, most of the reports were over-rated over here. Guys were looking for things that non-existed (English is not De Villiers’ first language).
“For us, we are here to do a job. The blood thing is nothing at all that can affect us.”
Jean De Villiers told Paul O’Connell it was all just a misunderstanding, De Villiers was informed, so did the discouragement of camaraderie come from the management level rather than the players?
“Maybe they don’t like South African beer.”
It would be a shame if this element of rugby union was completely lost, so this is not an issue?
Here followed another “ballerina” moment.
“Rugby is like any other sport. It is like swimming, you just get wetter in swimming than rugby.
“You are there to build bridges; I think there is nothing between the players on the field. When they leave the field they are really disappointed when they lose and feel great when they win.”
De Villiers added he respects that people deal with losing in different ways. “It’s human nature.”
He seemed to suggest bad sportsmanship on the Lions part. Then he back tracked.
“I don’t think we should make that big thing out of this.”
There followed a complimentary opinion of Irish rugby in its present state.
“They are a good bunch of players. The Irish team were camouflaged in red jerseys in South Africa and we all know it. I think this Irish team can be, at times, much better than the Lions were because of the fact they play together so much more and they have the stuff that you have to build on a Lions tour.”
When the press conference ended, De Villiers was last seen huddled over a laptop enjoying what seemed his first viewing of the Lions DVD. A smile spread across his face as he listened to Shaun Edwards and Ian McGeechan give their team talk before the second Test.
This marathon campaign is beginning to take its toll. Dr Craig Roberts reported that eight Springbok injuries that will be further assessed before team selection on Thursday. Training was cancelled yesterday as a result.
The injured are fullback Zane Kirchner (knee/thigh), centre Adi Jacobs (sprained ankle), scrumhalf Fourie du Preez (bruised thumb), lock Bakkies Botha (stiff back “exacerbated by economy class flight” from Italy), hooker Bismarck du Plessis (rib cartilage), reserve hooker Adriaan Strauss (back), Schalk Burger (rib cartilage) and CJ van der Linde, who “picked up a hamstring strain against Saracens”.
The Leinster Branch and Michael Cheika will not be pleased with the van der Linde news, as the prop has hardly lit up Northern Hemisphere scrummaging since limping into Dublin over a year ago.
Already stripped of backrowers Pierre Spies and Juan Smith, while Frans Steyn (Stade Francais) and Jean De Villiers (Munster) both took up lucrative deals in Europe, suffice to say, Saturday’s line-up will be significantly weaker than the team that beat the Lions in Pretoria in June.
That said, the best lineout in the world should be on show – the fearsome Botha and devilish du Plessis are expected to recover and feature alongside aerial master Victor Matfield – while the most devastating winger in world rugby, Bryan Habana, should feed off the razor-sharp form currently displayed by Ronan O’Gara’s worst nightmare, Jaque Fourie.
The centre famously ran over the groggy Irish outhalf during those defining last few minutes at Loftus Versfeld.
De Villiers did, in fairness, finish with an impressive flourish when reminded about the comments of his predecessor, Jake White, three years ago when White said that only Brian O’Driscoll, and maybe a secondrow, would make the Springbok 22.
“Ya, you know, my grandfather said 40 years ago: ‘We will only look back if you want to go in that direction.’ We don’t intend in going in that direction.”
The fun starts now.
