The tricky but enviable dilemma that Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer may find himself facing when he chooses his starting loose-forward combination at the World Cup was inadvertently showcased during a SuperSport in-studio discussion following last Saturday morning’s round of Super Rugby matches.
John Mitchell, himself a former loose forward good enough to tour with the All Blacks, made the point after watching a clip of Schalk Burger’s excellent performance for the Stormers against the Waratahs in Sydney that Meyer had to make Burger a first-choice selection because he was such a special player.
But in the match that had just been completed in Perth, Heinrich Brüssow had turned in a match-winning performance as a ball scavenger for the Cheetahs against the Western Force. Former Bok wing Breyton Paulse asked Mitchell if Brüssow should also be selected and Mitchell, after appearing to give it a moment or two of thought, concurred.
Of course, there are only three positions available in the starting team, and big Willem Alberts reminded us in the 40 minutes he was on the field in his comeback game for the Sharks against the Lions in Johannesburg later that same day what was missed when the Boks toured the northern hemisphere in November. Alberts’ strong driving presence was missed in both the matches that the Boks lost, against Ireland and Wales.
Alberts fits the mould of the No 7 that Meyer would be looking for, and while Burger did well there in the win over England at Twickenham, it’s hard to see Meyer leaving Alberts out if he is fit and ready to participate in the World Cup.
So while Burger over the past few weeks has given an indication that he’s back to his best, and he chose the perfect time to hit his peak as it coincided with him being presented with the prestigious Comeback of the Year award at the Laureus Sports Awards in Shanghai this week, he may struggle to make the Bok starting team.
Indeed, in the early weeks of the season, before Burger returned from Japan, the word was that he might completely miss out on selection to what would be his fourth World Cup due to considerations relating to the prototype required to fill specific loose-forward roles as well as the racial make-up of the group.
Be they official or unofficial, admitted to by the administrators are not, there are guidelines related to race group that every Bok coach has to adhere to. Oupa Mohoje, after being part of the Bok squad for last year, is going to be hard to leave out. And while he is not in great form currently, Nizaam Carr did play well when he got the opportunity in the absence of the overseas-based players towards the end of the tour.
However, as Mitchell noted last week, at the moment Burger looks like he will force the hands of the selectors as his performances have re-established him as the freaky almost super-human player that won the IRB World Player of the Year Award in 2004. If just form was taken into consideration in selecting a national squad, you would say that right now Burger has more right to be considered a certainty for the Boks than Richie McCaw has the right to be considered a certainty for the All Blacks.
Burger, who spent two years away from the field fighting a sequence of illness and injury following the 2011 World Cup, is not just making a statement in terms of the massive presence that he presents on the field, but also in his utility value. Meyer did mention the possibility of playing him at No 8 last year, and while shifting him to the back of the scrum has been mostly talk since he played there against the USA in Montpellier in 2007, he would be perfectly at home there in an emergency. For the Stormers this season, he has been equally comfortable in both the No 6 and No 7 roles.
Mention of Burger as a No 8 brings up the subject of Pierre Spies. The Bulls captain might not be everyone’s idea of an international loose forward, but he has played a lot of Test matches and was Meyer’s first choice before he was injured in 2012. During his time away during the last few international seasons, Duane Vermeulen has established himself as one of the two best on the planet in that position, All Black Kieran Read being his only rival for that status.
Spies must be in the mix, though, as a back-up No 8, thus adding to the list of players that will go under the Meyer microscope as he attempts to cut a large group that should also include the likes of Warren Whiteley, and possibly even Arno Botha if he gains some form, into the five or six loose forwards that will go to the World Cup.
Once Meyer is in England, the task of cutting six into three starters could be as onerous, though it’s hard to see him deviating from the Francois Louw, Alberts and Vermeulen combination that would have been his first choice last year were it not for injuries.
Mention of Louw returns us to the question of Brüssow, the specialist fetcher who All Black coach Graham Henry once rated the most influential and feared Bok player in clashes against his team.
Although Brüssow did earn selection to a Bok training squad last year where apparently he was told he was the next in line to wear the No 6 behind Louw and Marcell Coetzee he has yet to feature in a Test match during the Meyer era.
And unless there are injuries to the players ahead of him, he is unlikely to be a surprise selection to the World Cup group simply because Louw is more than just a specialist fetcher.
More performances like the one that Brüssow produced in Perth last week, will however, increase the pressure on Meyer from pro-Brüssow critics. The one thing we can be reasonably certain about is that the Bok coach must wish that he had the abundance of talent there is at loose forward available to him in potential problem areas, such as the midfield and scrumhalf.
Weekend Argus