OPINION: Don't raise your hopes, Boks will only disappoint

We all want the Boks to play well, play an exciting brand of rugby, and win, but if we’re honest it’s just not possible, says Jacques van der Westhuyzen.

While Allister Coetzee is putting together a makeshift side to take on the Barbarians at Wembley on Saturday, England boss Eddie Jones is already putting his best team together for next Saturday’s Test against the Springboks at Twickenham.

So, if you’re not sure why the Boks will start as big underdogs in the first Test of their European tour this month, then what you read here might provide the answers.

Jones, who’s yet to lose as England coach since taking charge at the beginning of the year, has already had a three-day camp preparing for this month’s Tests. This week, he’ll have a full seven days getting his squad into shape. The England 33-man squad flew out to the Algarve in the south of Portugal on Sunday and will spend the next few days - and then next week - preparing for the Boks clash.

That match is followed by Tests against Fiji, Argentina and Australia.

Yes, like the Boks, the England squad isn’t at full strength, with up to 11 first choice players out because of injury, but Jones will nevertheless go into the match having had a good two week build-up with all his players at his disposal.

Now, Coetzee is also missing up to 16 possible first choice players so there’s not all that much difference between the two squads; except the time spent with those available players.

Because so many of Coetzee’s squad members now play their rugby in Europe and Japan a full third (11 players) of the Test squad (33) will only arrive in camp Sunday night or Monday morning to start preparing for the England match. That’s just a handful of training sessions for Coetzee and his technical team to weave their magic.

What are the chances of that happening? Slim, very slim ... it’s just not fair on the coach, the players and the Boks.

This is why England will have such a big advantage going into the match.

The players who’ll come into the squad only after this weekend’s Tour match against the Barbarians are Willem Alberts (Stade Francais), Johan Goosen (Racing 92), Bryan Habana (Toulon), Steven Kitshoff (Bordeaux), Vincent Koch (Saracens), Willie le Roux (Canon Eagles), Lionel Mapoe (Kubota Spears), Elton Jantjies (NTT Communications), Franco Mostert (Ricoh Black Rams), JP Pietersen (Leicester) and Warren Whiteley (NTT Docomo Hurricanes).

If Jannie du Plessis (Montpellier) and Jaco Kriel (Kubota Spears) didn’t withdraw from the squad there’d be even more players only joining the Bok group in the days before the first Test. We all want the Boks to play well, play an exciting brand of rugby, and win, but if we’re honest with ourselves it’s just not possible with the way things are currently set-up in our country.

It doesn’t matter who the head coach is and who his assistants are; having so many players out through injury and others only coming into the squad so late puts the Boks at a big disadvantage.

So, while we all want to see improvement from the team over the next month, don’t set the bar too high ... you’re only going to be disappointed.

@jacq_west

The Star