Rich's weekend TV pick: Was accepted 2015 RWC narrative fair on Boks?

It seems the Springbok campaign at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England will forever be overshadowed by what happened in the opening game, but perhaps that team deserves to be given more credit than it was for the way it fought back from defeat to Japan.

The key games of that tournament, meaning not so much the Japan match but all the games from the quarterfinal stage onwards, will be shown on CSN and Supersport 5 on Saturday, starting at 9am with the match between the Boks and Wales and concluding later in the day with the final between New Zealand and Australia. The final will follow the screening of the next instalment of the 1995 Relive, with the Boks playing their Pool game against Romania in that segment (starting 6pm).

So was the overriding narrative, that the Boks hit the country’s nadir at that tournament by losing to Japan in the opener in Brighton, fair on the team? Perhaps not if you look where they ended up. They dealt with a lot in the week after the Japan game, and by all accounts there was a lot of soul-searching, and a lot that was said behind closed doors.

PANIC ON HIS SLEEVE

Certainly the coach Heyneke Meyer was wearing his panic on his sleeve. I arrived at the tournament after the Japan game because I was delayed in South Africa because of the sudden death of my mother. When I arrived at the team hotel in Birmingham, the venue for the second pool game against Samoa, I thought Meyer was extending his condolences when he told me how terribly sorry he was - only for it to dawn on me he was apologising to me as a South African for the loss.

He did that a lot that week, and in some of the weeks that followed, and I wasn’t the only person in that hotel foyer that Meyer poured his heart out to. The gist of what he appeared to be saying was that the players had let him down, and he made no bones about that in press conferences. The Samoan game was going to be the last chance for some senior players.

Just what was said behind closed doors that week has never been completely made public - instead there has been insinuation - but we can assume from what has been said that there were some hard, perhaps a few intense blow-ups and arguments between players and coaches, as well as lot’s of soul-searching.

It had the desired effect, for the Boks, in what was to be the selected skipper Jean de Villiers’ last international game, responded with a powerful performance at the home of the Aston Villa football team and then went on to destroy Scotland at another football stadium, the home of Newcastle, a week later.

UNFORTUNATE WAY FOR JEAN TO END

The triumph over Samoa was a good win but for De Villiers it was an unfortunate way to end his career after a year that had been dominated by what for him was a familiar struggle back from serious injury. De Villiers was injured in the final test of 2014 against Wales, ironically in the same week that coach Meyer had announced that he would be captain at the 2015 World Cup.

“I didn’t know (after that injury) if I would ever play rugby again,” recalled De Villiers in an interview last year.

“I had surgery, and making my way back was quite a cool experience. I had come back from injuries a few times by then, and the challenge of proving that I could still play was one that I took on with relish.

“(But) I think that the fact Heyneke had already announced that I would be the captain put him in an extremely difficult position. Maybe if he had that time over again now, he would do things differently. All that I could do was try to get back onto the field and hope I got selected for the Boks. But then I broke my jaw against Argentina before the tournament and then when I broke my jaw again against Samoa my World Cup was over.”

In retrospect, De Villiers reckons that it would have been easier for both Meyer and himself had he not been named as the team’s World Cup captain at the end of 2014.

“Maybe in a way Heyneke felt he had to select me and make me the captain. When I got injured, it made his job easier. He could then move forward with a captain he might have wanted from the start. That was how I looked at it when I left that World Cup,” recalled De Villiers.

DU PREEZ WAS COACH’S INITIAL CAPTAINCY CHOICE

The captain in question was scrumhalf Fourie du Preez, who had indeed been Meyer’s initial choice as team leader in his first year coaching the Boks, 2012, but who had become unavailable for various reasons relating to his contract with his Japanese club.

Du Preez was spoken into playing again halfway through Meyer’s tenure, but by then De Villiers was the accepted team leader, and he was doing a good job. In any event, Du Preez wasn’t available for all the Bok tests once he did resume his international career, and his run was stunted by injury interruptions.

Du Preez himself went into the World Cup after a long period of rehabilitation, and a race against time to be ready. He was on track to be fully fit to start by the time the tournament reached a later phase, and he was on the bench when the Boks lost to Japan in Brighton. That result though forced him to change his own plans and look for a fast track into the starting team.

“The Japan result was a massive shock, but not for me,” recalled Du Preez in an interview for the same book that De Villiers was interviewed for.

“I had played in Japan for the previous three years and their coach, Eddie Jones, is the most intelligent and astute rugby brain I have ever encountered. I warned the Boks beforehand that if we thought we could just rock up and play our normal game we were going to struggle.

“And it was a struggle. That struggle was compounded by the pressure of the World Cup adn that we thought Japan were useless because we hadn’t seen them play. Perhaps we were just too arrogant. It was bad. I remember walking off that field and think that I couldn’t let my whole career be defined by a loss to Japan.”

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

It was that defeat that made Du Preez realise he had to step up and take more responsibility. He couldn’t delay his return to the starting team any longer.

“Our preparation for that World Cup hadn’t been that great, to be honest. So I decided I should take my destiny in my own hands and try to change things. Heyneke also realised we had to play differently and that the players should take more responsibility.”

After De Villiers’ departure Du Preez was duly installed as captain and he regards leading the Bok turnaround as the highlight of his World Cup experiences.

“My highlight of the World Cups I participated in was not winning the tournament in 2007 but leading the team after the loss to Japan in 2015 and getting so close to winning the Cup again,” says the former world No 1 scrumhalf.

“I think there was perhaps a two percent belief back home that we could win it, so I am much prouder of how we recovered as a team and got so close than I am of having won in 2007. We were ready to win that Cup. Everything was going in our favour towards the end, as the whole environment had changed, the attitude had changed. I really thought we would beat New Zealand, and in the end we got so close in that semifinal.”

SKIPPER WOULD HAVE PLAYED ON HAD NARRATIVE BEEN DIFFERENT

They did indeed, with just two points being the All Black winning margin. After that the Boks won the third/fourth play-off game to take the tournament bronze medal, and had that World Cup been contextualised more positively back home, with the Boks being acknowledged as the third best team at the tournament rather than as the team that lost to Japan, Du Preez could well have played on beyond 2015 rather than retiring.

“Before that World Cup, I was 100 percent sure I would retire after it, but when I became captain I really enjoyed my rugby. If we had won the World Cup, or at least if the narrative was more positive, I would have carried on, at least for the next year, to assist with the turn-over between World Cup cycles. Unfortunately that did not happen.”

It was Du Preez of course who scored the decisive try to win the quarterfinal against Wales at Twickenham, and what he says is right - the Bok performance at that World Cup could probably have been perceived back home more positively than it was. After all, their World Cup didn’t end in Brighton. It was only just beginning, and in the end the defeat to Japan made no difference to where they ended up - as in they still won their pool and the All Black team that beat them in the semi went on to easily win the final against Australia.

*You can relive the Bok 2015 World Cup campaign, and the other key matches at that World Cup, on CSN and SS5 on Saturday, starting at 9am. Don’t forget the Relive 1995 game against Romania on those channels at 6pm, between the 2015 semifinals and the 2015 final.