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South Africa dumbfounded in the glare of southern exposure

Autumn Internationals: Vanquished tourists reduced to opting for a brutal gameplan as Woodward's men round off a November to remember

James Lawton
Monday 25 November 2002 01:00 GMT
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Here, in damp November, it looked like the end of the Voortrekker's trail, that point where the Springboks and all they represented as a remorseless rugby nation disappeared, like Hungarian footballers and Swedish tennis players in all but honour, down the high road of sporting history.

If this indeed proves to have been the case, if the thinly veiled threats of their coach, Rudolf Straeuli, and their captain, Corne Krige, that a terrible retribution will come to England in the bright sunshine and the hard track of the World Cup in Perth in a year's time are no more than the angst-filled death rattles of the disinherited, it might be said that what happened on Saturday was as much the exposure of moral bankruptcy as the last killing assault on a fabulously competitive tradition.

England, however, should go lightly in their role as arbiters on what precisely is acceptable on a rugby field.

When you bring down the stones from the mountain top you should always be sure that your hands are clean. England, on this sour and, at least from the perspective of the philosophical health of the world game, dispiriting occasion, were no doubt sinned upon. But only the shortest of memories could have permitted their swift journey to the highest ground.

Clive Woodward, a coach who perhaps as never before has some reason to believe that he may be involved in an ultimate push to make England champions of the world, led the criticism of South Africa's still-born cynicism, their cheap-shot decision to make chicanery their ruling objective.

He talked of his pride in the discipline and judgement of his captain, Martin Johnson, throughout a "brutal Test". He talked in sadness as much as fury about the tactics which had brought injuries to the targeted Jonny Wilkinson and seen the dismissal of Jannes Labuschagne for a "hit" so late it might have been scheduled by Virgin Rail. His assistant, Phil Larder, said that the South Africans had crossed an "acceptable" line by "a mile".

Despite the fierce objections of the embattled Straeuli – "two of our players suffered concussions" – the English arguments were perfectly valid in the context of what had just happened on the field.

But at what point does moral amnesia set in? Maybe Woodward had a flickering sense that such a question might be forming in some minds when he admitted, "We're not angels."

Certainly the idea of his captain Johnson as a man of unshakeable principle touched on the surreal. Earlier this year Johnson retained the captaincy of England in Paris a few weeks after an assault so calculated and brutal it would have stood out horrifically even in South Africa's most exaggerated exploration of their own thuggish tendency, one which has never been totally separate from their greatest performances. If England had shown any awareness of that line mentioned by Larder, maybe, too, they would have acted a little more strongly a few years ago when Johnson cold-cocked the New Zealand scrum half Justin Marshall, which for some witnesses will always stand out as a candidate for any all-time list of random savagery on a rugby field.

Straeuli and Krige were, it has be said, shameless on Saturday. Krige denied a policy of illegal attrition, and said the result would be different in Perth. It was like a gangland designation of a battle site. Straeuli claimed that television evidence showed that Lasuschagne was in the process of withdrawing from the match-changing collision when he saw that Wilkinson had parted with the ball. That was a bit like charting a malevolently triggered avalanche. But then given all the circumstances there was no great disposition at the post-game press conference to put the boot in. England had climbed up into the seats of judgement, and after that where had the Springboks to go but into the land of denial? They had lost by a record margin, they had been battered and exposed, their scrum devoured by Phil Vickery and the relentless warhorse Jason Leonard, and when the likes of Austin Healey and Andy Gomersall came on to the field as late replacements they must have felt they had been summoned to not much more than a bout of looting.

Richard Hill played with a magnificent swagger, Ben Cohen showed again a hunger for tries that has become ragingly insatiable and Will Greenwood revealed, more consistently than on other recent occasions, the turn of a thoroughbred. Nor, as the coach pointed out so proudly, did Johnson, see the red mist.

It was, in all respects, an entirely satisfactory point of embarkation for the season which will shape Woodward's most promising assault on the World Cup. No one but a cheerleader could have argued these last few weeks that England have been without weakness in their unprecedented defeat of the southern hemisphere, but this was a rampaging statement about future possibilities.

For the Springboks, the pain of the journey home is almost unspeakable. Krige's gathering of his battered and humiliated troops, his statement that they would never again feel so badly and that there would be redemption in Perth, no doubt anticipated the nature of their impending return to a land where rugby was always more a statement of national identity than a sporting challenge.

Krige, you had to suspect, was maybe doing more than react to one catastrophic afternoon. Perhaps he was also raising a fist to the fact that so many of the certainties of a white South African have been blown away by the gusts of history. Ten years ago, remember, the South Africans came out of their long exile on a stirring afternoon at Ellis Park against the All Blacks. The vast crowd sang the Boer hymn Die Stem – and three years later the Boks were champions of the world.

At Twickenham on Saturday a young woman sang a rainbow anthem, quite beautifully, but then, before the Springboks retreated into the worst of their rugby history, we couldn't quite guess how much had changed.

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