No Beast shadow cast over potential Bok Lion tamer

Steven Kitshoff went in front of the media for the first of what will probably be many occasions in the build-up to the British and Irish Lions series and for a while it was possible to imagine that the Springbok prop was being mistaken for Ox Nche.

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The Sharks’ Nche is the new player who should be joining the quartet of props that these days makes up a match day effort for any team, not just the Springboks when they are in Bomb Squad mode and playing their customary - well it was at the World Cup - six/two split between forwards and backs on the bench.

Instead, it was Kitshoff being cast as the one who was having to emerge from the shadow of South Africa’s legendary loosehead of the past decade and a bit, Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira. Shadow? What shadow? That might have been true when Kitshoff first started getting acquainted with the Bok jersey back in 2016. It’s definitely not now.

BEAST’S EFFORT WON THE 2009 SERIES

That is not to denigrate Mtawarira’s massive contribution to the Boks, and Kitshoff is going to have to get used to what is going to become the perennial question: Does he back himself to do what Mtawarira did to Phil Vickery in the 2009 series.

And Kitshoff will know better than anyone why that question is going to be asked. While it was Morne Steyn’s pressure penalty kick at Loftus that clinched the Boks their series win over the Lions 12 years ago, it was really Mtawarira who won them that series. For it was his scrumming effort that gave the Boks the edge in the first test in Durban and set up what was to follow.

The Boks did win that series 2-1 and we mustn’t forget that the South African side that was thrashed in the final dead rubber test was effectively a second-string combination due to a questionable selection decision from the then coach Peter de Villiers.

But if you cast your mind back to that series, you might remember just two halves where the Boks were the better team. The first half in Durban and the second half in Pretoria, when the South Africans came back from a deficit to win. And that first half in Durban was really about Beast.

“I was a kid in my second last year at school in 2009 and I watched the game on television and really enjoyed watching Beast destroy the Lions,” recalls Kitshoff.

He seemed careful though not to say anything that might be interpreted as incendiary and avoided saying that he wanted to emulate what Beast did by winning the series for his team.

“I will try my best to represent and uphold the jersey as much as I can,” is what he said instead.

AN HONOUR AND PRIVILEGE

There is no denying though that Kitshoff learned a lot from Mtawarira and has said so often. And he said it again this week.

“Playing with Beast was a massive honour and privilege and to learn from him was hugely helpful to me in my career. He was a great legend not only in South African rugby but in the sport as a whole.”

The operative word there is “with”. He never played instead of Mtawarira or the other way around, they were a team even though they were never on the field at the same time. People would get it wrong is if they say that he is now cast in a new role as the first-choice loosehead prop. For that’s not really the case, even if it is he who emerges from the tunnel at Cape Town Stadium on the first day of the series wearing the No 1 on his back.

KITSHOFF OFTEN WORE No 1 AGAINST ALL BLACKS

Once Kitshoff settled at international level, and that really didn’t take him long, it was very much a case of Mtawarira and Kitshoff working in tandem rather than one playing ahead of the other. Who wore the No 1 and who wore the No 17 was often dictated by horses for courses considerations, and it is interesting to note if you look back at the records that in the last few years of them playing together it was invariably Kitshoff who started against New Zealand.

England coach Eddie Jones was right when he railed against the English media when they criticised him for leaving a player they favoured on the bench during the World Cup in Japan.

“Welcome to modern rugby,” was his caustic comment to one of his detractors when he was questioned.

Meaning of course that rugby is these days played by 23 players and not 15. Bulls coach Jake White does not consistently play Bok tighthead Trevor Nyakane off the bench because he thinks he is an inferior player to the player who starts. On the contrary. He wants to finish with his best players and that policy has worked for him.

Mtawarira and Kitshoff would arguably not have been as good as they were in the World Cup winning effort were it not for the way they worked in tandem. Whoever started, and Kitshoff is in many ways the perfect impact sub because of his incredibly high work-rate, knew he could empty the tank as the other player was poised to come and do the same. It was the fact that the Boks had players who were equivalent to each other playing and backing up in the tight five that gave them their leg up in the games that mattered.

NOT MUCH CHANGES

It is Nche who is now facing the pressure of having to replace Mtwarira, not Kitshoff. For Kitshoff, nothing much is changing, except that he is moving from ‘Beast’ to ‘Ox’ as his partner.

“I am going into this series with a similar approach to what I have always had. I will sacrifice everything for the team and the Springbok cause, not much changes for me,” he said.

He’s become a World Cup winner since the last time he ran onto the field wearing the Springbok jersey, so that has changed. And like some of the other World Cup winners, he almost inevitably hasn’t always reproduced his best form during the past 20 months. At his best though he is for good reason rated by many as the best player in his position in world rugby and can certainly do a ‘Beast’ on the Lions.

PACKING AGAINST IRISH STRONGMAN NOTHING NEW

Where interestingly the Phil Vickery role looks set this time to be played by a player Kitshoff knows well. Irish strongman Tadhg Furlong is being backed by the overseas media to be in the forefront of the Lions’ attempts to subdue the potent Bok scrum.

“To be brutally honest Tadhg is a very good player,” said Kitshoff. “He has represented Ireland very well for a long time and I have played against him often. He played against me the first time when I was playing for South Africa under-20, and he also happened to be the guy I scrummed against in my debut test match.

“He is a world class player but we also have world class tighthead props and they can pitch up any day and out-scrum anyone.”

Indeed. And it might well be there, the scrums, where the series is won and lost for the Boks. After all, that phase of the game did have an inordinate say on the destination of the World Cup trophy 20 months ago. If he’s at the top of his game, the two Bok looseheads who are part of the match 23 when it most matters are both capable of “doing a Beast” on the Lion