Springboks happy to kill running rugby

OPINION: The loose cannon of world rugby is not the gregarious Brendan Cannon, a Fox Sports commentator, but the Springboks and their coach, Peter de Villiers.

It is now an infamous rugby incident that Cannon was required by the Springboks to apologise for calling de Villiers a ''clown''. Fox Sports was wrong to force Cannon to grovel.

De Villiers and the Springboks are not just clowns, they are dangerous clowns. Their attacks on referees, their refusal to accept the laws of the game or the just punishments handed their thuggish players, their abuse of other coaches and the absurd claim of a conspiracy against the Springboks are part of a sinister attempt to undermine the best elements of modern rugby.

This sinister attack is inflaming Springboks supporters to unacceptable levels of paranoia. Even more importantly, the attack is a direct challenge to changes in the way the tackled ball is refereed. These changes represent the best reform since the introduction of the ''use-it-or-lose-it'' principle.

The Springboks want a return to the negative game that rewarded kicking sides and punished sides trying to run the ball.

From being the dominant side in world rugby, the Springboks have become (out of South Africa, at least) an ordinary side. On Saturday night they were decisively beaten on points (literally and metaphorically) by a Wallabies side that smashed them at the breakdown and refused to kick away the ball. The Wallabies kicked 11 times (which must be something of a record in minimalist kicking) and the Springboks 16 times. This high-octane, ball-in-play style was too fast for the monster pack and the ''might is right'' system of the Springboks.

After the thrashing they complained about being unfairly penalised at the rucks. They have a policy of illegally diving across the ball at rucks. At Brisbane, it was noticeable how many times Springboks tacklers ended up at the back of the Wallaby ruck where they interfered with Will Genia's clearances.

The yellow card given to BJ Botha was offered by the Springboks as proof the conspiracy exists. This is nonsense. Slow-motion vision shows Botha deliberately plonking his body over the ball to kill it before cynically raising his arms as if to suggest he had got there by accident.

The Springboks just don't get it. They insist they won't change their game to take into account the realities of rugby in 2010. So they are deliberately trying to undermine the new interpretations. The hope is, presumably, that the IRB might restore the kick/pressure/penalty game that was so favourable to them. The IRB must stand firm against this recalcitrance. In my view, if the Springboks get away with their Justice4Boks campaign, the cause of entertaining, skilful, running rugby will be put back years.

This brings us to the Wallabies-All Blacks matches in Melbourne and Christchurch in the next two weeks, to be refereed by South Africans. During the Super 14 tournament, South African referees sometimes were, in a word offered by a New Zealand rugby writer, ''generous'' in their decisions in favour of South African sides. For these Tri Nations Tests, though, and the others in South Africa, we want the IRB standard that encourages open rugby, not the Springboks standard that thwarts it.

- © Fairfax NZ News