Matt Williams: Attacking instinct needed to quell South Africa

What type of rugby player comes from the land of the elephant, lion and Shaka Zulu? The unfathomable contradictions of Africa are irresistible.

A few years ago, I meet with some of the members of the most successful Australian team to ever tour South Africa.

In 1963 the Wallabies defeated the Springboks at home, in two consecutive Tests, for the first time since the Lions back in 1896.

I asked a few of the 1963 Wallabies, what does it take to defeat the Springboks in South Africa?

“They’re a bloody tough people,” an old secondrower told me. “You have to be tougher than them to win, and that is not easy.”

The ’63 Wallabies definition of tough needs some understanding.

Just before half-time in the fourth and series deciding final Test at Port Elizabeth, the Aussies were fighting for an historic victory.

As in all games in South Africa back then, the black Africans supported the visiting team. Whoever was an enemy of the Boer, was the friend of the Africans.

After a series of powerful Australian plays and several dubious decisions by the white South African referee, the black Wallabies’ supporters were making plenty of noise.

The police later claimed the black supporters rioted, so the crowd had to be dispersed at half-time.

Shotguns were blasted at the crowd and horses were ridden into the black area of the ground.

Bleeding corpses

The “native” stand, as it was referred to, that only a few moments before was crowded with joyous black faces, was deserted except for the dead and bleeding corpses.

A former player described the Australians reaction.

“We had never seen anything like it. If you talk to the Wallabies who played that day they will all have different accounts of what happened, much like witnesses at a horrific road accident.”

The Wallabies believed the black supporters only crime was to cheer them on and the black crowd was attacked and lives lost simply to put the Australians off their game.

I know that is a staggering statement, but it tells you a great deal about the mindset of the time. The Wallabies lost and drew the series two-all.

Clearly, the brutality witnessed in 1963 is from an era that has thankfully gone.

Contrastingly, all the former players also spoke with deep affection for the wonderful hospitality and sportsmanship they experienced, on many occasions, on the tour.

They all had a palpable horror of their collective experience of the politics of the time and an obvious passion for Africa, that has lasted more than 50 years.

The conflicting images of majestic beauty and brutal violence are part of the African experience. The contradiction of the African continent.

Many of that ’63 team and the players from the 1969 Tour, became leading voices in Australians’ efforts to boycott the racist apartheid government of the time.

My generation rightly never played a game in South Africa.

When Nelson Mandela was unexpectedly released from Robben Island and free elections were called, as if by magic, I was on the Emerging Wallabies staff in 1993, touring South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia.

A few months later Super Rugby was born and I was back to the Republic of South Africa every season for almost a decade.

Here is the truth as I have found it. The Afrikaans are a people of the greatest hospitality and the deepest determination I have experienced during my life in rugby.

Their spirit still powers South African rugby.

The contradictions of this are as vast as Africa itself. To defeat the Springboks in a game of rugby in their homeland is one of sport’s greatest challenges.

The 1963 Wallabies won at Ellis Park. The next win for the Wallabies in Johannesburg was in 2010. Africa has never been a place for the weak spirited.

This is very young Irish team, with many of our experienced players remaining at home. The vast majority of the squad are touring Africa for the first time.

As Darwin said: “It is not the strongest that survive, it is those that adapt the fastest.”

Ireland need to get into the Boks’ skin and adapt to the enormity of the challenge, then create a tactical plan and a mindset that will challenge this great rugby predator in its home environment.

The same tactics that we witnessed during the Six Nations will lead to complete failure.

Africa remains a place where life and death are separated by a gossamer curtain.

You can say what you want, but that danger, that adrenalin pumping fear and excitement still attracts many to Africa. There is nothing like the possibility of imminent destruction to make humans feel at the height of their being. That has always been one of Africa’s sensual joys.

This young Irish team must “seize their day”. Like the ancient Wallabies from half a century before, no one is giving them a chance of success.

‘Guile and thought’

“We had to out think them and attack using pace, guile and thought.”

Those words from a 1963 Wallaby ring true today. Ireland must attack.

Despite playing bravely in the semi-final against New Zealand, the World Cup was viewed as a disaster by the South African public.

Like a wounded buffalo, cowering amidst the thorn bushes, the South African rugby team has only one option. Full blooded, head on attack.

A wounded Springbok in the bush of the high veldt, is not a great threat. On a rugby field, it is one of the most frightening beasts imaginable.