Rugby Union: Sodden S Africa can only get better: Cardiff fail to make most of murk

There are those among us who have been circumnavigating the rugby globe these past few years who have heard it all before, the apparently inevitable platitude about the necessity of simply winning the first game of any given tour. The Springboks claimed to be pleased to have done so when the more suitable response would have been relief.

Relief at having beaten Cardiff 11-6 in a game when they were regularly on the back foot and were unable to establish the slightest tactical coherence.

Relief that, having in the twinkling of an eye been transported from the 90F sunshine of South Africa to the rain- drenched murk of south Wales, they somehow survived the chastening experience.

Indeed, it is possible to argue that from here - from Saturday's depopulated Arms Park to next month's Test- match bursting-to-the-seams Arms Park - things might even get steadily easier. Cardiff are as good a team as there is in Welsh rugby at the moment and they caught South Africa at their moment of greatest vulnerability, when the sight of the heavens opening was a hellish vision.

Small wonder the sodden Springboks looked so disorientated. Bits and pieces of their game functioned reasonably, notably Mark Andrews in the line-out and Andre Joubert as a steady and secure full- back, though even Joubert was so affected by the weather that he totally forswore the ambitious instinct that makes him one of the world's boldest counter-attackers.

Otherwise, the tourists can only improve, specifically and generally. First, in their basic skills, by eradicating the persistent mishandling which, by their coach's count, presented South African ball to Cardiff half a dozen times. Second, in the wider sense of having a clue what to do and when.

Probably because this was a new combination, these Springboks at times looked hopelessly disorganised, the one exception being Joost van der Westhuizen's 40-yard dash at a standoffish defence for the game's only try.

Eventually the Springboks settled for a wet-weather strategy and thus, with the tour hardly begun, abandoned the good intentions that had accompanied them from South Africa. 'We're going to have to slow the game down,' Kitch Christie, the coach, said. 'We're trying to play too fast. You can do it on the High Veldt where the ball sticks in your hands.'

It is surprising that he should ever have imagined it would be any different. Christie's parentage is Scottish and part of his education took place at Leith Academy, Edinburgh, where even 30-odd years ago it was more likely to rain than shine. Besides, Saturday's captain, Rudi Straeuli, had spent a season with Penarth in the mid- Eighties. 'I had forgotten,' he said, 'how tough it could be here in Wales.'

Now, everyone knows and, if the rest of Welsh rugby is taking heart from Cardiff's performance, they could do worse than remember what befell the outstanding All Blacks of 1989. They, too, began against Cardiff and won with difficulty. Swansea and Neath further roughed them up. Then they went and beat Wales by a record margin at the Arms Park.

Deja vu? Five years ago we were constantly reminded by anxious Welshmen that Wayne Shelford and company were 'only human' and this weekend those at the sharp end were at it again. 'The big problem going into the game was we hadn't seen very much of the South Africans,' Mike Hall, the Cardiff captain, said. 'That's probably the trouble in Wales: we build up the opposition too much and we go out there and find they're not as tough and hard as we think.'

The conclusion Hall draws from this is obvious but also, if we are to believe Christie, debatable. 'I'm sure other clubs and particularly Wales can take encouragement,' Hall said. With which the Springboks coach would not necessarily agree, an opinion based on his own experience as coach of Transvaal when they were virtually unbeatable and the re-emergent South Africa were all too beatable.

'How much stronger can Wales be than Cardiff?' he mused. 'We've seen in South Africa that sometimes your top provincial sides can be more effective than your national side. It could happen like that because the provincial guys were so used to playing together.'

This is a fair point, though the great success Alan Davies and Robert Norster had achieved with Wales before rugby league and savage injury took their toll was to overcome precisely this club / country paradox. Welsh hopes against South Africa, and maybe even in next year's World Cup, will depend on how far this is sustained in the dolorous absence of Gibbs, Quinnell, Evans and Rayer.

One thing Wales will have going for them on 26 November is a full - ie 52,000 - Arms Park rather than the derisory 14,000 who dodged the deluge on Saturday. When South Africa last played Cardiff 25 years ago, the attendance was exactly double at 28,000 and the symmetry continues with 14,000 being the precise capacity of the club ground next door.

'It didn't feel like the atmosphere of a club game against a touring team,' Hall said. 'I personally would have preferred to play it on the club ground, where it would have been more intimidating, more difficult for South Africa.

We'd been led to believe it would be much bigger than that.' One London radio report anticipated, in its ignorance, a near-capacity crowd.

What, then, was Jannie Engelbrecht, the fulsome South African manager who toured here as a player 35 years ago, on about when he said this? 'It looks to me that you people are even more mad about rugby than the New Zealanders.

Your love of the game and excitement have escalated to such an extent it gets me worried.' Perhaps once the Springboks have played at Stradey Park, The Gnoll and St Helen's, but surely not yet.

Ah well, possibly it is a question of interpretation - as when Straeuli engaged himself in a dialogue with the referee, Jim Fleming, at half-time.

Afterwards the acting captain was asked - by a thick Ulster voice, mark you -whether he had had difficulty understanding Fleming's Scottish accent?

'No,' Straeuli retorted. 'I just look so stupid.'

Cardiff: Penalties Davies, John. South Africa: Try Van der Westhuizen; Penalties Stransky 2.

Cardiff: C John; S Ford, M Hall (capt), C Laity, N Walker; A Davies, A Moore (A Booth, 34- 39); M Griffiths, J Humphreys, L Mustoe, S Roy, D Jones, H Taylor, E Lewis, O Williams.

SOUTH AFRICA: A Joubert (Natal); C Badenhorst, B Venter (Orange Free State), P Muller (Natal), C Williams; J Stransky (Western Province), J van der Westhuizen (Northern Transvaal); B Swart, U Schmidt, I Hattingh (Transvaal), M Andrews (Natal), H Hattingh, R Kruger (Northern Transvaal), G Teichmann (Natal), R Straeuli (Transvaal, capt).

Referee: J Fleming (Scotland).

(Photograph omitted)