Boks wait on Montgomery

A change apiece from both the winning and losing teams seems the likeliest outcome when South Africa and Ireland unveil their hands for the second Test in Cape Town this coming Saturday (kick-off 3.0 p.m. local time, 2.0 p.m. Irish).in Cape Town

The Springboks delayed their selection by 24 hours, pending yesterday's afternoon session at which Percy Montgomery was due to resume training again after recovering from the groin injury he picked up in the Dragons' concluding Celtic League game of the season against Leinster.

The clear inference is that he will be recalled after a two-year absence at fullback in the only change from the Boks' team which started the first Test, and will assume the goalkicking duties, whether or not Gaffie du Toit is omitted or moved to the wing.

With Gordon D'Arcy a costly casualty from the first Test, Eddie O'Sullivan is obliged to make one change.

A straight replacement in Kevin Maggs seems the most probable decision, but the Irish coach does have a number of options at his disposal.

With two (D'Arcy and Denis Hickie) of Ireland's four main gamebreakers now on the sidelines, there is an argument for getting more out of Geordan Murphy and Brian O'Driscoll.

Murphy was brilliant last season when finally nailing down the full back position and adding another dimension to Ireland's attacking game and as security at the back.

Although he looked to be short of his best when returning on the wing for the final two Six Nations games against Italy and Scotland, as part of Leicester's rejuvenated run-in, Murphy's old confidence and cocky desire for the ball seemed to be back.

However, his inventiveness and support runs were contained by his peripheral role on the left wing last Saturday.

A world-class full back on the wing looked a waste. Attacking from full back, even if switching positions occasionally with Girvan Dempsey, or from outside centre, where he played impressively in Perth, would, theoretically, add more off-the-cuff wit to Ireland's running game.

Given the Boks' defence wider out looked suspect, it could be an area where Ireland could cause some damage. Shaun Payne hooked up with his adopted country yesterday morning and could be called in to the bench ahead of Tyrone Howe on the basis that he is more versatile, but again Howe looks the likelier bet.

Ireland, like their fellow northern hemisphere travellers, have an end-of-season look to them and the management decided to have an additional day's rest yesterday. The squad will train today and tomorrow, putting back their mid-week rest day to Thursday, before a light captain's run on Friday.

Mindful that some players have played more rugby than others this season, O'Sullivan might also consider promoting one or more of the quartet of forward replacements to add a bit more Munster dog to the tight five but ultimately it would be surprising if there were too many changes.

Aside from recalling Montgomery, Jake White will hardly make any other changes. There was a doubt about Saturday's two-try man of the match Bakkies Botha due to a foot injury, but even though Theo Cronje has been called up as cover, White is confident that Botha will be fit by Saturday.

Cronje's call-up will raise eyebrows, though, given the circumstances of his expulsion from the Springbok squad last year prior to the World Cup after it came to light that he wouldn't room with a black team-mate.

"We're not going to make an issue of something that happened in the past," said White yesterday. "I'm just going to pick players on their ability. I wasn't involved in that era, but I don't want to make an issue of these things."

There was also some controversy around the time of Montgomery's departure to Newport after a brilliant Super 12 campaign in 2002 at the start of the Rudolf Streauli era. Montgomery's agent was quoted as stating that the Springboks' second highest points scorer of all time was leaving because he was being forced out of the Springbok team due to the unwritten quota system, though he subsequently denied this.

White admitted that retaining a winning side en bloc should not be written in stone. Pointedly, given du Toit's four from eight return last Saturday, White commented that "the statistics indicate that he (Montgomery) is one of the best goalkickers around.

"He has a strike rate of over 75 per cent in the Celtic League and if he's fit he has a very good chance of playing."

White is expecting an improvement from Ireland's first Test performance. "They haven't played international rugby together in a very long time, which is tough.

"I'm sure they'll feel a bit wounded and conditions in Cape Town will be very similar to an Irish climate.

"I'm sure their performance will improve because they also didn't have any video footage of us. They will study the video of the first game very closely, they'll see a couple of things we weren't good at and I'm sure they'll try and exploit that."

However, Smit observed that "we've only one game so we don't really have privilege of being complacent yet," while bearing in mind his team's capacity to improve a week on, White ventured that "there's no reason why we can't win by more next Saturday".