Boks insist they won’t be distracted

Against a background of a possible player’s strike and contoversy over Victor Matfield’s sending home, South Africa’s management insists that the players are focused on beating the All Blacks.

In their recent match against the Pacific Islands, the South African players wore white armbands to signal their protest againsttheir employers SARFU. The players action was a shot in the arm for the player’s union, SARPA, which is in conflict with the union over alleged contract promises made under Rudolf Straeuli’s regime.

There is suspicion that this was the root cause of Victor Matfield’s return from Australasia. Jake White has insisted that Matfield was sent home injured, but a recent medical report has said that Matfield is fit to play. As Matfield is one of the players at the centre of the SARPA/SARFU row, there are many people putting two and two together and getting their own number.

“One of the things that I have said over and over as coach of the team is that I don’t want the team to be distracted by anything back home or by administrative issues and that’s even more the case this week,” said White.

“One of the things that I have said over and over as coach of the team is that I don’t want the team to be distracted by anything back home or by administrative issues and that’s even more the case this week,” said White.

“We have put a lot of emphasis on the fact that the All Blacks are the number one rugby nation in the world and we have said to the players – and they have bought into the fact – that we can’t be distracted by anything that goes on off the field.

“We’ve got 22 players and they’ve got 22 players, and you never want to come off after a Test match and say ‘if only we’d not concentrated on those other issues’.”

And just to keep the pot boilig nicely, as is the way with South Africa, White has made a bold selection call in opting for Albert van der Berg to partner Bakkies Botha in the second row on Saturday. Van der Berg couldn’t make the Sharks Super 12 team but finds himself in the Springboks team ahead of Geo Cronje, the more obvious replacement for injured Gerrie Britz. White has said that van der Berg’s problem had been his physical strength but he has addressed that through assiduous gym work which has seen him add 8kg.

Meanwhile the All Blacks are coming through the worst of the ‘bug’ scare that has afflicted their preparations this week. Despite this, Joe Rockococko has been shipped into quarantine and this has cast doubt over his appearance, as well as Daniel Carter’s. It’s not as bad as the ’95 World Cup final bug, but it has affected 5 of the squad.

The match pits the two form packs of World rugby against each other and there should be quite an amount of combustion up front when they go head to head. Both coaches have made very good starts to their regimes based on a ‘back to basics’ approach. The feeling however, is that the All Blacks carry more threat behind and this may be decisive. But if Rockococko and Carter don’t play that advantage may be blunted.