Peter Bills: Ireland can be World Cup dark horses
We're talking rugby, Jean de Villiers and I - both the northern and southern hemisphere versions -- and trying to analyse how far ahead the south may be in terms of the new law interpretations.
But really, the reality is bearing down on us from above. It is called the sun and today, here at the training ground of the Cape Town-based Super 15 franchise the Western Stormers, at Belville in the northern suburbs, it is 30C.
Three days later, when the Stormers run out at 5.0 for their match against the Cheetahs, the temperature at kick-off is 34C. The ground is like a rock, baked hard after what has been an excessively hot and windy South African summer in the Cape.
Mind you, what follows is pure 'Ireland versus England' from the 1960s. The Stormers win 21-15, seven penalty goals to five. Not a try in sight. So how does the former Munster centre regard the debate over northern versus southern hemisphere in the year of the Rugby World Cup?
He comes up with a highly positive viewpoint. "Obviously at the moment, with it still being dry over here, the game is a bit quicker and you need to adapt to it much faster.
Fantastic
"But some of the rugby I've seen in the Six Nations and the Heineken Cup has been fantastic as well. So they are adapting in the northern hemisphere, but it takes a while to do that.
"Having experienced the game in both hemispheres inside the last 12 to 18 months, I think how you play this new game is dependent on two major factors. The first is the conditions. There will be more running rugby in the southern hemisphere, especially at this time of year in the dry conditions.
"Up north, where it is wetter with muddier surfaces, you've got to kick more and it is going to be a more forwards-based game. When it rains here, we play exactly the same way so for me, it's much of a muchness."
It is also De Villiers' firm belief that one man largely decrees whether a game will flow, whether players will get the opportunity to run and move the ball: the referee. "It is how the match official on the day interprets it; that is very important. Different referees interpret these rules differently.
"From a player's point of view, and particularly from a captain's aspect, you have to be able to play the referee."
The notion that so much hard work and preparation may come down purely to how a referee views the law interpretations and how he wants the game played is a fairly sobering one. For the one thing players want -- and should be able to demand -- is consistency from match officials.
To have one referee saying one thing one week and something quite different the next makes a complete lottery of the game. Hence De Villiers' view that coming to terms with any individual referee's approach early on is critical to the outcome of a team's ambitions.
And he is right. The early weeks of the new Super 15 season across the southern hemisphere have confirmed the point. An aspect one referee may have targeted will be all but ignored by another.
Yet De Villiers is equally clear on another matter. Despite what we could kindly term a 'stuttering' Six Nations season to date, he insists that Ireland have the wherewithal to embrace and excel at this so-called 'new' game.
"I think they do have the capacity, definitely. They have some really exciting players in that side. For me, Keith Earls is a fantastic player. And they still have Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy.
"Tommy Bowe is still young, Rob Kearney, although he is injured at the moment, likewise. In the meantime, Luke Fitzgerald can play wing or full-back. And at scrum-half, I think Tomas O'Leary is a special footballer."
Hold on a moment; doesn't this sound like Munster bias or bluster? De Villiers laughs. "Obviously I'm a bit biased towards the Munster guys but then with ROG and Jonathan Sexton as well, you've got two totally different guys who can also fulfil a role for you.
"Ireland can play this new game, of course they can. With all their talent, that isn't in doubt. But maybe, as I said, playing to the referee and the way that he interprets the breakdown is something they can work on. I still think they're a big threat and they might just be the dark horses of the World Cup."
But share a rugby chat with De Villiers these days, no matter what the location, and the conversation inevitably turns in the direction of Munster, at some point. That is the effect this proud rugby province has on people, as the likes of Christian Cullen, Trevor Halstead and Doug Howlett would doubtless testify.
Jean de Villiers is no different. Yet isn't the truth that Munster never saw the best of the Springbok centre, I ask him? He blanches a bit at that one, but concedes: "I think that's fair, in a way.
Experience
"Obviously towards the end, I thought it went really well. Again, conditions-wise, it maybe suits me more with the drier fields, but the experience as a whole I really enjoyed."
As ever, the worldwide rugby family added new members as a result of the experience. "I sent ROG a text last weekend, with him being back in the Ireland starting line-up. I still Skype with the guys every now and then so it was a great experience for me, although probably from a rugby point of view, it could have been better."
Why? Had he just played too much rugby and arrived tired?
"It might have been too much rugby. But it is a different style of rugby that they play and I was maybe asked to fulfil a different role. But you play the way that the team needs you to play.
"We made the semis of the Heineken Cup and the Magners League. Of course, we would have loved to have won both, but if you look at the situation now, it was maybe a better year last year than the current one."
Ah yes, the doom and gloom that is Munster rugby circa winter 2010/11. News like that spreads like wildfire around the rugby playing fields of the world. But De Villiers is a positive soul and he doesn't buy the theory that Munster are facing long years in the rugby wilderness. Not in any sense.
"They will come out of it. They will be going through a stage where they will be losing quite a lot of players due to age, retirement and all that.
"You can either fear that or see it as an opportunity for the new guys to come through. I was amazed by the support base they have got there and I think that will definitely carry them through this difficult stage."
So rugby is not about to die in Munster? De Villiers looks horrified at the thought. "Please no! Thomond Park is something special and you never want that to die."
- Peter Bills
Irish Independent
