Bok shooter Libbok, familiarly, in everyone’s crosshairs

For much of Manie Libbok's career, he has had to put at ease, please and placate. That often comes with the territory — the marksman becoming the marked.

He can perhaps relate to Frederick Forsyth's character in The Day of the Jackal, in which the hunter becomes the hunted. In the book and the movie, the Jackal is dispatched to Paris on a mission that takes him on a meandering journey of intrigue, deception and subterfuge where not all is what it seems.

His assignment could be scuppered at any moment as he increasingly finds himself in the cross hairs of forces foreign and within.

Doubt, or perhaps doubters, have tracked Libbok through his provincial career, into Super Rugby, the United Rugby Championship (URC) and now with the Springboks. He has brought a fresh dimension to the Bok team, particularly in attack, but it is his sharpshooting at poles at the game's highest level that often sees his credentials dragged into the open.

Libbok had to remind us that pulling the trigger is just one part of his job.

“My whole game is going to be important, every part of it — if it is kicking for poles, if it is kicking out of hand, if it is my attacking with ball in hand. Every bit of it is going to be important,” he said about Saturday's huge Rugby World Cup (RWC) pool B game against Ireland at Stade de France near Paris.

“I’m just working hard on my basic skills. Kicking for poles — I’ve put a lot of work in to get it right.

“I treat every game the same. I prepare as much and as hard as I can to be in the best possible position to perform.”

His head coach at the Stormers, John Dobson, said Libbok has a great work ethic.

“In fact, we at times have to de-load him. We have to drag him off the field after practice. He'd stay behind and work with [kicking coach] Gareth Wright as the forwards headed for the bus.”

Dobson made the point that Libbok's kicking accuracy at poles is not so far from Handré Pollard's in the Bok jersey. There is the perception they are poles apart.

It is worth noting that Pollard also went through a dip in his accuracy at the last World Cup, before restoring his aim.

“If you ask the public if they'd like to have a flyhalf who can take the team's attacking game to a new level, like a Marcus Smith, and they'll score more points, but he'll miss the odd kick, then they'd all sign off on it. Yet now people are unhappy, I don't understand it,” Dobson said.

The Stormers coach then made an observation less to do with rugby but and more rooted in the South Africa's past.

“Maybe the paradigm is there is an expectation for certain players to get flustered under that kind of pressure, but Manie does not. He'd miss three kicks in a row. He'll tee up the next not knowing he's missed three. He's got great attention to detail and he does not get flustered.”

Saturday's game is a notch up from what Libbok is used to. The game's two top-ranked teams are fighting for pool supremacy and he's up against Ireland's talisman, Johnny Sexton. Comparisons will be as readily available as Guinness in Dublin.

“Johnny is a great player and he’s [done] amazing things for Ireland over the years,” Libbok said. “But for myself, it’s just focusing on myself and my game, and preparing to the best of my ability to be ready to go on Saturday.

“I’m just looking forward to the challenge. It’s going to be a massive game. It’s the World Cup. It’s the biggest stage in rugby.

“I’m just grateful to be in a position to go out there on Saturday and represent my country.”