iafrica.com columnist BJ Botha is back from the south of France feeling relaxed, fresh, and ready to review the Springboks victorious home-leg of the 2009 Tri-Nations.

The south of France is a beautiful place! I have just finished up a summer camp with Ulster, having played against Bayonne over the weekend, and had a great time while I was over there.

There are a lot of South Africans playing over in France — as I am sure you all know — and it was good to catch up with old Sharks team-mates Rob Linde, Jaques Dean and Sam Gerber who are plying there trade at Bayonne and Eduard Coetzee, who is playing for Biarritz now, and who I stayed on with for a couple of days after the Bayonne game.

I managed to watch the Biarritz-Toulouse pre-season game while I was there and I was blown away by the atmosphere! It was incredibly festive, they had the original trumpet/ole chant going (which has now been picked up by SA grounds), and a full band in uniform that kept the capacity crowd entertained.

The game itself was fast, hard and incredibly entertaining — very similar to Super 14 standards — and the teams had all their big names playing, but it was the atmosphere that really stood out for me.

Ulster is still full-on pre-season at the moment with a few warm-up games still to come. We're playing Newcastle next weekend, then Italian side Viadana, and finally Worcester, before our first league match on September 6.

Enjoying the sun

It is quite different doing the pre-season in the south of France, with the majority of the guys really enjoying the sun. It's summer in Ireland at the moment, but then summer in Ulster and summer in Biarritz are quite different - although, most things in France can be a little different.

The beaches were absolutely packed, and it was quite a culture shock because everybody just lies on top of each other! You feel like if you move your head slightly and you're going to hit the guy behind you…

It was really good to experience a different lifestyle for a while, took it quite easy after the games, ate some great French food, and I could quite easily get used to the chocolate croissants.

South Africa in pole position

I can also get used to how things are going in the Tri-Nations with South Africa now in position one after having made the most of their home-round advantage with great wins over the All Blacks and Australia.

They have also managed to move away from the Kiwis in second by creating some space between the two of them in the world rankings. You can't argue with three-from-three and at the moment it looks like nobody can beat this Springbok side.

At the same time, things seem to be getting worse for the other two teams with Australia losing captain Stirling Mortlock, while the All Blacks are again sweating on the fitness of Richie McCaw.

The Boks, however, need to now concentrate on getting an away win while on tour to sew up the competition.

Becoming ruthless

In my mind where the Boks have been so good is in dominating the lineouts, and how ruthless we have been on the opposition's mistakes. Opposing teams cannot make mistakes against us because they know that we will punish them — either on the scoreboard or through territorial domination.

At the breakdown we have also become ruthless, which in turn helps our defence, and makes it tough for the opposition.

We are not playing spectacular, champagne rugby, but the things we do, we do incredibly well. We're creating opportunities for Morne Steyn to knock over the drop-goals and goal the penalties, and that's the difference. We have specific guys in the side who are there to carry the ball up and give us that momentum we need, and then we have players such as Bakkies, the enforcer, and Heindrich Brussouw, who is causing all sorts of problems for the opposition.

On the weekend, the Wallabies were forced to make desperate decisions against us, which was summed up for me by George Smith hitting the ball out of Pierre Spies' hand towards the end of the game. Smith knew he was wrong, and he turned and walked immediately after being binned.

I know that some people are saying that Australia could have beaten us if they hadn't been reduced to 13 men, but that's total rubbish! We forced them to make those decisions by totally dominating them up front. They had no choice but to infringe to try and slow things down… Smith was the best example of that.

Onwards and upwards

As we look to the overseas leg of the tournament we need to start looking at the conditions we will encounter, which may cause a change in tactics and general approach. Australia and New Zealand will be much tougher at home, but I personally think we are past that and have a great chance of getting a result in Australasia.

Teams have begun to expose New Zealand at home, with France being the latest to break them down, which will give us confidence. Australia may actually be tougher at home right now, but we have the game to beat them.

We are currently employing a simple game, but playing it well – everybody knows their roles and if we carry on playing the way we have been then we shouldn't have any problems.

We have a goal-kicker who can kick points and a forward pack laying a solid platform for the backline to work from. The Boks will be happy winning, even if it may be only by penalties or drop-goals and not crossing the whitewash!

It is looking more and more to be in the Boks favour this year though. They will go out to win every game, but in the back of their minds they will know they still have to travel, in the end I am sure they wont blow there flawless record opportunity this year!

Chat soon,
BJ Botha

  • BJ Botha's Northern Exposure will appear weekly on iafrica.com, so log in next week for more from the Springbok powerhouse or leave a comment below!


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