Optimism needs to be kept in check

Confirmation that the Springboks were pushed to the wire by Argentina in winning 37-33 at the River Plate Stadium on Sunday might encourage the popularly held view that Ireland will never have a better chance to beat South Africa than at Lansdowne Road next Sunday. Hmmm, not so sure about that one.

Even taking the Pumas as a rigidly applied barometer when comparing Sunday's result (in front of 45,000) with Ireland's defeat in the same city last July, South Africa would start as 15-point favourites - one more than their winning margin here two years ago and probably not far away from how the bookmakers will call it this weekend.

Somewhat similarly, it would appear, the Springboks had particular joy when moving the ball wide against the Pumas in the firsthalf, the difference being they took more chances and Percy Montgomery at least managed a couple of conversions in helping the Boks to a 24-16 interval lead.

Once more, the Pumas relied heavily on the boot of Gonzalo Quesada in a 10-man game and gradually cranked up the pressure with the help of a swathe of penalties. The difference being that the Springboks were able to withstand the late siege, whereas Ireland wilted last June.

The experiment of playing long established full back Percy Montgomery at outhalf has been widely hailed as a relative success. That the jury is still out on his tactical kicking game is simply because he hardly put leather to ball. The Springboks, continuing the playing revolution initiated by Nick Mallett under new coach Harry Viljoen, by all accounts ran everything, even from their own line.

Joost van der Westhuizen returned in place of the injured Werner Swanepoel, who had successfully supplanted him in the Tri-Nations, and was hailed for his best Springbok performance since the World Cup. Dangerman Breyton Paulse, one of the few success stories and ever-presents for the Boks this year, scored two tries, with others for the rejuvenated Robbie Fleck, replacement centre Braam van Straaten and veteran lock Mark Andrews.

Had next Sunday's meeting come around last June or July, when the Boks lost four successive games to England, the Wallabies (twice) and the All Blacks, then Irish optimism would have been more legitimate.

Coupled with another poor year by their provincial sides in the Super 12s, at that juncture the Springboks looked like a side caught in a sort of Bermuda Triangle between their traditional forward-orientated game, and the all-singing, all-dancing 15man running game Mallett was striving for. In two-and-a-half games they hadn't scored a try, nor looked like they could open a tin of tuna, much less the high quality New Zealand and Australian defences.

But buoyed by a partisan Johannesburg crowd and a seventh minute try by the talismanic Chester Williams (in his first start for five years), suddenly they cut loose in the return game with the All Blacks, scoring six tries in a sensational and recuperative 46-40 win. Australia bogged them down (as they do, as they do) but even so the world champions were indebted to an injury-time touchline penalty by Stirling Mortlock to clinch the Tri-Nations.

So, in the end, the revitalised Boks finished the Tri-Nations not far behind the world's top two at all. By any criteria, remembering that Mallett had guided the Boks to their record-equalling 17 successive Test wins two years before, the sacking of the coach was scandalously unjust, and seemed to owe more to the complex political world of South African rugby. With his assistant Alan Solomons tarred by the Mallett brush, this left a gaping void in the succession stakes. The only credible successor was Viljoen, a dapper, youthful looking 41-year-old self-made millionaire.

FINANCIAL independence has probably done his sense of equilibrium no harm. Word has it that when SARFU opened financial negotiations, Viljoen retorted "whatever you were paying Nick." In truth he was somewhat out of the rugby coaching loop at the time, not having coached a side in two years and having finished with a run of six successive defeats in his most recent stint, at Western Province.

Viljoen has coached three different South African provincial sides, Transvaal, Natal and Western Province, guiding each to the Currie Cup final in his first year at the helm, 1991, '92 and '97 respectively. He has never been sacked as such, which is pretty unique in the world of sports coaching, having walked away from Transvaal after a run-in with Louis Luyt and then declined Natal's request to move from Johannesburg to Durban. However, he has taken two long sabbaticals from the game, firstly to run his successful insurance business from '93 to '97, and latterly leaving the Stormers to run an assets management company.

He has never really tested his coaching beliefs against foreign opposition, though against that he has remained close friends with Wallaby coach Rod Macqueen and ACT Brumbies coach Ed Jones; hence, perhaps, an Australian-influenced penchant for the ball-in-hand, running game, and the inventive use of Montgomery (a la Steve Larkham) at outhalf.

In truth he's pretty much carried on where Mallett left off. While the latter was largely criticised outside of Cape Town for picking too many Stormers, Viljoen has brought 14 of Western Province's Currie Cup winning squad on this tour. The overdue infusion of eight black players is no token gesture though, and four were in last week's midweek side (a record in Springbok colours) which beat Argentina A 31-22.

All in all these Springboks look like a squad still in the first flush of a new coach's traditional honeymoon period. Ireland's best chance to beat the Springboks for the first time in 35 years? And so the best chance of a first win over one of the Southern Hemisphere big three in over 21 years? Maybe. Maybe not.

gthornley@irish-times.ie