GAVIN RICH | Bledisloe sounds warning to Boks - they aren’t up to the Rugby Championship

The decision on the participation of the Springboks in the forthcoming Rugby Championship was probably made a while ago, but if it wasn’t, the frenetic and dramatic eight minutes played after the hooter in Sunday’s Bledisloe Cup game should have swayed sentiment towards staying at home.

With the score 16-all, the All Blacks and Wallabies took turns at hammering away for the win as a succession of penalties coupled with a willingness to keep ball in hand when possession was turned over kept the game going. You have to be supremely conditioned for international rugby to be able to keep up that frenetic pace and to defend like that.

An unfit team would have conceded a score or settled for the draw by kicking into touch. But in a game that underlined just how much tougher the Wallabies could be under the coaching of Kiwi Dave Rennie, both teams threw everything into their quest for victory.

It underlined where the two Rugby Championship contenders are when it comes to their conditioning. Way ahead of where the Boks are. Let’s not forget either that they are also due to play two more Bledisloe games before the Boks are scheduled to start their Championship campaign. It all seems to add up to such a mismatch.

According to a media release issued by SA Rugby, a final decision on the Bok participation in a tournament that is scheduled to begin in less than four weeks is due on Monday. It needs to be Monday or at the latest Tuesday, for if the Boks were flying, they’d need to do so at the weekend to satisfy quarantine requirements in Australia.

There are still those with vested interests in the Boks going who are hoping the decision will be a thumbs up for participation, but it seems highly unlikely. All the messages we’ve been getting from national director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and Bok coach Jacques Nienaber have suggested it is a non-starter.

While Erasmus said in a media conference a few weeks ago that the Boks wanted to go and would do everything in their power to get to Australia, everything else he said suggested the opposite. There was the issue of the length of playing time players would be able to get in, with Nienaber stressing that science had shown players needed a minimum of 400-500 minutes to be ready for international rugby. None of the locally based players will come anywhere close to that.

That was just one stumbling block – there were many others. And then there have been other signs, such as Bulls coach Jake White resting his skipper Duane Vermeulen for his team’s opening Super Rugby Unlocked game against Griquas. He wouldn’t have done that if he thought Vermeulen was going to be with the Boks and thus unavailable to him from next week. From his personal viewpoint, Vermeulen would need every bit of game time if he was playing in the Championship.

It all adds up to a thumbs down for participation, something the All Blacks should understand after they kicked up a tizzy fit about having to be away from home for Christmas. Spending Christmas in quarantine, meaning away from their families, is not something the Boks want to do either, and they would have to do so if they played in the Championship.

Non-participation would be bad news for the franchises from a financial viewpoint. While I’ve been against Bok participation because of the damage it could do to the brand, I’d have to concede those drawbacks would be better than the possible alternative, which is that some local rugby entities go into bankruptcy.

But if the science says it would be a risk to players if they are pitched into a high-intensity international competition so soon after coming back from a particularly harsh lockdown, then surely that is what must drive the decision? There’s been a long history of SA rugby bosses not protecting their primary assets, meaning the players, and it is time for that to change.

If the decision is against Bok participation, South Africans will be able to watch an extended domestic season played at full strength. Provided the administrators don’t make a mess of the opportunity they are being presented with, and the players and coaches understand the need to sell the game, then it could be to the long-term benefit of the SA game.

The mention of administrators messing up is a reference to the sloppiness that led to the jersey clash in the Loftus game. It’s the second time that has happened in Pretoria in 2020, and it happened in a game at Newlands not that long ago too.

With the games being played in empty stadiums and thus already lacking atmosphere, the marketing of the competition is challenging enough without throwing in further obstacles by allowing a situation where for 40 minutes, until the Bulls changed jerseys, the rugby was nigh unwatchable.

That isn’t good enough at a time where local rugby so desperately needs to sell itself by maximising entertainment value.