Smit absence creates opportunity
by Gavin Rich 23 September 2010, 10:09
Confirmation that John Smit has undergone an operation that will keep him sidelined until February next year has created a win-win situation for all parties who have an interest in seeing the Springbok captain come back and play his best rugby in 2011.
It has also broken the apparent holding pattern in which South African rugby has appeared to find itself, as everyone awaits the SA Rugby Union review of the Tri-Nations disaster, which is scheduled for next week.
Bok coach Peter de Villiers announced recently that 13 contracted players will not be part of the group that tours the United Kingdom and Ireland in November. But although all the indications are that De Villiers will be retained as coach, there is still no complete certainty and there have been indications that he could be forced by rugby bosses to consider a solution to the current crisis that he might not be happy with.
What we now do know for certain is that Smit will not be captaining the side as he takes three months out to recover from a back operation which was carried out to repair a chronic cervical disc. When he does return to the training field in early January, Smit will have some time to sweat out the kilograms he may need to lose if he wants to return to his best form in time for what should be his swansong season.
The Bok captain will want to give the Super Rugby tournament a full crack, as the competition will be key to him recovering the reputation that many feel was ruined by his poor form in the recent Tri-Nations. Smit will want to be in a position where he can lead his team from the front as they head to New Zealand to defend the World Cup crown won in 2007, and Super Rugby will provide him with a chance to pick up momentum and match-fitness.
To those who have worked with Smit, it would not have been a surprise that his best game of the Tri-Nations season was the last match against Australia. Sharks coach John Plumtree has long argued that Smit needs a good sequence of successive games to get his fitness up, and it usually takes Smit a couple of games with the Sharks before he really gets up momentum.
But before the season starts, Smit will have to shed some weight, as it’s estimated that his best fighting weight is between 115 kg and an upper limit of 117/118 kg; he was three to four kilograms heavier than that in the Tri-Nations season.
In the meantime, Smit’s absence will give the Springbok management – however that group may be constituted by the time the departure for the first tour match against Ireland arrives in early November – a chance to assess where they stand in Smit’s absence.
Indeed, while De Villiers will surely not welcome Smit’s absence, as the skipper has been a constant presence at his side during the better parts of his reign as Bok coach, it could prove fortuitous if the South Africans still manage to complete a successful tour.
There has been much talk over the past two years of the player-driven system that is said to be responsible for most of the Bok success. De Villiers has been happy to take on a background role in the devising of strategy and Smit, vice-captain Victor Matfield and senior player Fourie du Preez have effectively been the team’s coaches over the past 24 months.
This system has been criticised, and there were always critics who questioned whether it could be sustained, but while it worked and the Bok momentum was up, there was no good reason to meddle with it.
There is however a fine balance between effectively empowering players and giving them too much power, and there has been plenty of evidence that discipline hasn’t always been what it should be during the 12 months of Bok decline which has seen them lose seven of their last 13 matches.
If what would essentially be a new Bok team, held together by a few experienced players such as the anticipated skipper Juan Smith, Bakkies Botha and Jean de Villiers, enjoyed a successful tour, it would both be a positive comment on De Villiers’ ability to coach without Smit and Matfield, and a strong message to the senior players who stay at home that they are not royal game.
Should the likes of Bismarck du Plessis and Andries Bekker, who is expected to tour after recovering from an operation, play well in the UK, it would put down a marker and send out the unambiguous message that every player has to play for his place in Super Rugby. That would eradicate the potential for the complacency that played a part in the Bok nose-dive from top in the Tri-Nations in 2009 to last position 12 months later.
