Cheslin Kolbe: We are disappointed but we can learn a lot from this defeat

DISAPPOINTMENT: South Africa’s Cheslin Kolbe dejected after the game. Pic: INPHO/SteveHaagSports/SteveHaag

Four years, and all the variables that add up to give every game its own unique barcode, separate the two fixtures but South Africa’s World Cup pool losses to New Zealand and Ireland are linked by a web of similarities.

The margin of defeat and the perceived gap between the teams was heavier in Yokohama four years ago, but listening to Jacques Nienaber praise the victors with an admirable grace in Saint-Denis on Saturday was to be transported back to Japan and the words uttered by Rassie Erasmus.

The former Munster director of rugby gave his conquerors their due. He bemoaned the mistakes made by his side that evening in Japan, he rued a penalty count that fell against them, and he acknowledged that, while not a knockout blow, it left his team looking to reclaim the centre of the ring.

Tick, tick and tick again.

“We would have loved to win this game to get some momentum to go into the quarter-finals,” said Erasmus then.

Nienaber accepted that this loss has cost them in an identical manner and both men, on both evenings, warded off questions about potential quarter-final opponents and opted instead to take the grieving process one cliché at a time.

The differences are obvious too.

The Boks weren’t engaging in alchemy back then. There was no wholesale, new-age attempt to task scrum-halves with roles on the wing, or to overload flankers with lineout duties. It’s one thing to say someone can ‘cover’ a position, another again if that player can excel at it. What looked admirable and bold pre-game now seems more like hubris.

For all their innovation and ball juggling, the fact is that they had two tens utterly suited to the job at hand when they won the World Cup in Japan but only one, with an in-built fault that could act as a gremlin in the system at any time, available to them here.

So, for Handré Pollard and Frans Steyn in 2019, we had Manie Libbok at the weekend. Libbok has many talents but a man can’t hope to prosper as a Test out-half if he can’t split sticks, or if there isn’t a colleague somewhere along the line who can do it for him.

Libbok, Faf de Klerk, and Damian Willemse have missed a dozen kicks at goal between them at this World Cup so Pollard, glimpsed on the sidelines on Saturday, will be front and centre sooner rather than later. He has to be. This is cup rugby.

Until then, this game within a game goes on. Siya Kolisi earned a round of applause from some so-called journalists when defending Libbok after their win over Scotland, and more teammates again had his back as midnight approached at the Stade de France.

“We are all professional enough and we all take ownership in all departments and we all just back each other and focus on the next opportunity,” said Cheslin Kolbe. “Obviously gutted for him. He is professional enough and he doesn’t go out there to miss kicks.

“No player goes out to make mistakes but we back each other and we just focus on the next opportunity in the next game. We can only learn and grow from this and my advice is just to keep backing each other and believe in each other.

“We have a good group culture, it is just incredible in this team. We can keep our heads high. We are disappointed but we can learn a lot from this.” 

The most important lesson goes without saying but it seems incredible that the South African brains trust has let it go this far, even if injuries have undermined them in nailing the out-half conundrum and Ireland are one Johnny Sexton injury away from similar concerns.

Nienaber touched on all this back in February of this year when he went as far as to say that the litany of injuries suffered by their tens was a stroke of fortune in that it forced them to hand out auditions. It’s unlikely he holds the same views now.

The likelihood was that Pollard would have been blended back into the team from this week on when they face Tonga in Marseille anyway but events north of Paris have accelerated the need to solve the problem and Sexton's form shows that a long layoff need not hinder Pollard now.

The Boks let Ireland off the hook last November when Willemse left seven points behind in Dublin, and again here when failing to top up their efforts with eleven more points from the tee. They won’t be so generous a third time if the two converge down the line.

“There is still another opportunity for us against Tonga to perform,” said Kolbe. “It’s not over for us and we will keep fighting. Whatever happens next we have to make sure that we are ready for that."