Boks crash to the Wallabies, you must be joking

OF all the column inches written about the Springboks scraping past Argentina twice in their opening matches, the fact that they are still top of the Rugby Championship table seems to have escaped everyone.

It’s a typical South African overreaction when things don’t exactly go according to plan.

The big idea ahead of those two games would have been a bonus points win for the Boks at Loftus and finally putting Argentina in their place in Salta with another big victory, following the purgatory they’d put Heyneke Meyer’s side through in the past.

The two squeaky bum wins are ample evidence that the plan didn’t work, but the idea that the Boks are now going to be mugged by the winless Wallabies is irrational.

Sure, the Aussies are desperate for their first victory in the competition, are at home and will get the rub of the green, refereeing-wise. But can anyone honestly say they have a better team than the Boks?

Looking at the key positions, is the Wallaby frontrow better than its Bok counterparts? Who would you rather put money on, Sam Carter and Rob Simmons or Eben Etzebeth and Victor Matfield?

Wallaby captain Michael Hooper is quicker than Francois Louw and probably shades him as an out-and-out fetcher, but will Scott Fardy and Wycliff Palu give him the same support Marcell Coetzee and Duane Vermeulen would “Flo” in the loose-trio?

Nick Phipps and Bernard Foley did some good things for the Waratahs in Super Rugby, but would you back them over Ruan Pienaar and Morne Steyn? And so on and so on.

Some will rightly point out that the Boks had a similar “name player” advantage against Argentina, whose performances supported the expression that rugby matches are not won on team sheets.

But the Super Rugby familiarity of the Aussies will mean there are no real surprises for the Boks in Perth tomorrow.

Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie also appears to have given the Boks an early leg up by dropping the in-form Kurtley Beale to the bench for the match.

McKenzie seems undecided on where Beale, who played an influential inside centre in the Waratahs’ march to their first Super Rugby title, will be most useful for the Wallabies.

The idea to play him at flyhalf is a mistake for two reasons: where Beale played throughout Super Rugby and bringing the irresistible fullback Israel Folau into the game. After playing flyhalf, centre and fullback in his formative years, Beale appeared to have finally found his best position this year.

Playing him at 10 means it’s difficult for Folau to run off him like he did to the tune of 12 tries at the Waratahs because it is too close to the traffic jam in the flyhalf channel. Also, with the Boks’ new ploy of playing two inside centres in the midfield wreaking havoc with their defence, the Beale/Folau partnership would have prospered.

Looking at the Boks themselves, Australia is probably one of the international packs one would choose to try and rectify scrum issues against. With Matfield in tow, the lineouts are highly unlikely to be the lottery they were in the last two games.

With the setpieces sorted out, one would expect a chastened SA pack to want to assert itself physically at the breakdowns. And we all know what happens to the Bok backs once their pack is dominant.

Given that the Boks like to keep things interesting by performing only when they’ve been written off, I expect them to win tomorrow. And with that, I’ve probably put the mockers on them.