Boks can't live without the ABs

[ROAMER]

Boks the losers in Sanzar split
 
Let South Africa's rugby administrators make their threats about breaking away from New Zealand and Australia, writes Gregor Paul. If they actually went through with it, they would only find the grass is not greener after all.

It is odd that the South Africans are again threatening to break from Sanzar on the weekend 94,000 people crammed into Soccer City to watch the All Blacks play the Springboks.

Whatever threats they might make; however much they feel marginalised or victimised by their Australasian partners; South African rugby cannot afford to cut ties with the All Blacks.

The All Blacks are South Africa's golden ticket - the fuel that drives much of their passion.

The popularity of the Currie Cup is such that the South Africans could happily walk away from Super 15. They have never been fully sold on a competition that hands them a raw travel deal. Even now that the Bulls are the premier side, if their association with Super Rugby ended today, few tears would be shed.

But giving up regular, meaningful contact with the All Blacks would burn them. These are the tests that ignite the public mood in South Africa. The Boks versus All Blacks is the only rivalry that counts in the Republic. No one else cuts it - beating the English is fun, it means something, but the depth of history is not there and nor is the respect.

It's much the same with the Australians - a classic Johnny Come Lately without the same aura, prestige and guarantee of quality. The All Blacks are the only side that the South Africans measure themselves against. Stadiums sell in an instant when the All Blacks come to town.

The impression the South Africans give is that if they have the Currie Cup and Tri Nations, their world is complete. It's a narrow vision but one that would suit them perfectly.

Such a scenario was on the cards for some time in 2009 when the Sanzar alliance was on the brink of splitting. South Africa, without consultation, sold Currie Cup and in-bound tour broadcasting rights.

That created multiple issues for building a viable Super 15 format and, for several months, Australia and New Zealand worked on an alternative trans-tasman provincial competition.

The future at that stage was exactly the one South Africa craved - free to do their own thing until the Tri Nations. That may well be the future they want from 2015, when the broadcast deal that starts next year expires.

With almost 50 million people, fanatical support, strong corporate backing and an improving infrastructure, South African rugby adminis-trators have it in their heads that they hold all the cards.

Talk of breaking away is not new. It has happened periodically throughout the 15-year Sanzar alliance and yet here they all are - the three partners together, for better or for worse.

That's because the South African position is a bluff. They are arguably in the weakest position of the three. Lose the All Blacks and they lose everything.

That's a view shared by the South African players, if not their administrators.

"During the renewal of the Sanzar broadcast deal, various alternatives were investigated and the reality is that there are not viable options that can provide the players and public with exciting world-class rugby," says Piet Heymans, head of the South African Players Association.

"Should the Sanzar partner-ship be dissolved, it could have serious implications, not just for South African rugby but world rugby as a whole."

New Zealand, on the other hand, need the Springboks less. A few days before the clash with Australia in Melbourne, Richie McCaw was asked which meant more to the All Blacks - winning the Tri Nations or Bledisloe Cup?

"I think the Bledisloe probably edges ahead but, if you get the Bledisloe, there's a fair chance you have the other one as well," he said.

"The Bledisloe is really important... when you come to play the Wallabies, that's the one you want to look after the most."

For the current generation, any New Zealander born after 1970 really, the historic rivalry with the Boks is anathema. Those classic encounters, those nerve-strewn nights huddled round the radio for commentaries, belong to a different age.

As Conrad Smith said last month, he and his team-mates grew up in South Africa's isolation years and had no appreciation of the Springboks. It was always the Wallabies they saw as the All Blacks' arch rival. That remains the case.

Before the Tri Nations, New Zealand sustained a meaningful test programme without South Africa. As did Australia. Those two could survive happily with just each other and epic battles for the Bledisloe.

If South Africa quit Sanzar, what would they have? The Six Nations don't want them and there is no one else.

So let their administration talk of moving on; let them make their threats.

For all their posturing, they must surely realise that no other opponent could have been taken to Soccer City in Soweto and sold it out.

They must surely realise that the fervour, the hype, the tension, the pressure on the Springbok coaching staff and the expectation to succeed is that bit more intense because it is the All Blacks lining up against them.

If they don't - let them find out the hard way. Let the South Africans seek new partners and new markets and let them discover just how empty those new frontiers are in comparison with what they currently have.

* * *

The French were always convinced there was a Home Unions conspiracy against them back in the days of the Five Nations.

The Home Unions, according to the French, always got a better deal from the referees - most of whom spoke English.

Clearly, the South Africans are forming a similar view about the All Blacks. Unlike the French, however, there is some sympathy for the South Africans. The French had a classical Gallic interpretation of events. They had front-rowers who would head-butt, punch and kick and be sent off and then they would froth with injustice when Celtic and English players were merely warned after they had killed the ball at a ruck. Different crimes, different punishments.

The South African sense of injustice has some foundation. In the first five tests of the Tri Nations, there were grounds for believing there to be one set of rules for the Boks and one for the All Blacks.

Danie Rossouw harmlessly flicked at Richie McCaw's ear in Wellington. When McCaw reacted, Rossouw tried to brush him off and was yellow carded.

It was innocuous stuff but referee Alain Rolland wanted to make a statement early. Yet when Rene Ranger was accused of a dangerous tackle later in the half, there was no card or citing. Jaque Fourie and Jean de Villiers copped two week bans for tackles that were no worse.

It was also fortuitous that inexplicably Rolland couldn't see the number on Sam Whitelock's back when he tipped up a Bok forward and dumped him on his head.

Bakkies Botha took a yellow for killing the ball near his goal-line at Eden Park. McCaw took three warnings for killing the ball three times near his goal-line a week later.

Most perplexing was the non-sanction of Tony Wood-cock for driving into the back of Wallaby hooker Saia Faingaa in Christchurch. It was a nasty, off-the-ball hit that the Boks just knew had it been committed by Botha or Rossouw, would have been a yellow card and a ban.

Their simmering discontent with this inequality boiled into public rage when coach Peter de Villiers was summoned to a disciplinary hearing for suggesting, obliquely, that there was a desire among officialdom to see the All Blacks win in New Zealand to boost the popularity of the World Cup.

The summons, according to SARU president Oregan Hoskins, was a "declaration of war". The Tasman brothers were in cahoots to South African eyes and a few days later, despite de Villiers being exonerated, reports emerged about a possible South African breakaway from Sanzar.

It's easy to see why they feel the world is against them; why the alliance is not all it should be - but there is no conspiracy. While history is always written by the victors, sport, too, favours the winners.

Winning teams have always had an easier ride from referees. When a team like the All Blacks are playing well and positively, referees are more lenient. Maybe it's not fair but that's how it is and there is truth to the saying teams make their own luck.

Last year, when the Boks were winning, when the game was set up perfectly for them, there was no talk of a Tasman conspiracy, or of a breakaway once agreement had been reached on the future of Super 15.

In the Tri Nations last year, they picked up two yellow cards, same as the All Blacks and half the four shown to the Wallabies - the team that lost five of their six games.

Last year, they were winning and Sanzar could last forever. Now they are under pressure and are threatening a walkout.

What happens next year if the Boks start winning again, if the All Blacks start being hammered by referees?

It's not that there is one set of rules for the All Blacks and another for everyone else. There is simply more leeway, more patience shown to the team dominating and it just so happens that this year, that is the All Blacks.

[backinblack]

Danie Rossouw harmlessly flicked at Richie McCaw's ear in Wellington???? When McCaw reacted, Rossouw tried to brush him off and was yellow carded???

Who wrote this absolute drivel? Obviously a SAFFA.

Rossouw blatantly stuck his fingers in Richie's eye then kicked him. Is the moron who wrote this completely blind as well as stupid?
(whoops did Mc Roamer write this?...jeeez sorry )

[backinblack]

What's going to be great is if the Boks pull out of the TN and think they can just waltz into the six nations. Then the six nations decide they don't want babies who throw their toys out of the pram everytime they lose. Afterwich the Boks will be left with just the Curry Cup, little international rugby and back to the bad old days of apartheid. LOL

[Rarua]

Woodcock did deserve a YC and probably a ban.

This was in the hands of a South African referee and the citing commissioner was also a Saffie.

South Africans can complain about lenient treatment of All Blacks, but this was down to South African officials.

[ROAMER]

Aaand that contientious macaw try was correctly given a green light by... Yes, a saffa :)

honestly most saffas do not beleive in the conspiracy theories .. Some people just got hoodwinked by de villiers ramblings

[Reformed]

Don't think SA will pull out of SANZAR no matter what the reason... we have far more to loose than to gain in such a move... the "I'll Huff n I'll Puff" hysteria will dissapate in due course. Div will get fired... and the rugby bosses will stick it out as they have done before... say 1 thing and then do the opposite.

[backinblack]

Just saw a great grafitti on the wall outside of the SARU...

...the paranoids are after me.

[Reformed]

Yeah... I suppose we are in for a new coach in due course...

[Paddywack_uk]

I would have thought SA would have the least to lose with Oz having the most. NZ would be left alone with Oz which would not be ideal. SA is the best equipped of the Sanzar countries to go it alone and could group itself with Argentina I guess. Ofcourse none of these senarios are perfect, Sanzar needs to stay together and it needs Argentina to blow some fresh air into tired competitions like the tri nations 

The alternative is Oz and NZ playing each other again and again and again and again   

[Reformed]

Good day your Eminence!

Paddy, whilst I'll agree that SA stands to gain fainancially (considerably) from a move to the 6N I'm not sure if we would gain from the playing standards... the 3N is the toughest of all the rugby international championships imo and stepping away from that would not be beneficial... Then again... with all the extra cash we could afford a proper coach.

[ROAMER]

Are you absolutely sure you will gain financially? I dont think so ..

[Reformed]

Financially... yeah, they will. Bigger tv audience yada yada yada... more cash up there. Not even going to try to argue the counter but I still don't think SA will split.

[Strathen]

SA would get more financially from my understanding, they provide the lions share of the audience as it is now.

I don't believe they will break away either. They appear to have embraced Union type tactics; throw toys, threaten strikes, threaten to break away and form their own organisation, try to use a perceived yet illogical sense of power and entitlement to ensure they get an unequal playing field in their favour. Then, if it happens, repeat. if not? Repeat anyway.

[Reformed]

Life in Africa summed up...