Exclusive: John Smit

Planet Rugby sat down with Springbok captain John Smit to chat about the World Cup, refs, innovation, injuries and New Zealand.

With the World Cup looming large on the horizon, Planet Rugby sat down with Springbok captain John Smit to chat about innovation, referees, game time and the perils of playing in New Zealand.

No team has ever successfully defended the World Cup and no team has won it three times. In September the Springboks will make the all-too-familiar journey to New Zealand and attempt to do what no team has done before.

While South Africa's style of play has always suited the knock-out format of the World Cup, the rugby landscape has changed since 2007. More than ever enterprising rugby is being rewarded and various pundits have questioned whether the Boks have the correct approach to go all the way at this year's global showpiece.

At a recent function in Johannesburg where BMW were unveiled as a new sponsor of South African rugby, words like 'innovation' and 'precision' – vital attributes of winning teams – were the buzzwords. When Planet Rugby's Ross Hastie spoke to the Bok skipper, those concepts were central to their discussion.

Planet Rugby: The Boks have taken a lot of flak over the last year or so for what some perceive as a lack of innovation for not changing your game plan to suit the new law interpretations. Is this something you've taken to heart?

John Smit: I think it's important to take some perspective because criticism will always come when another team is doing better than we are. Inevitably that criticism comes in between major competitions. For us, we'll do whatever is necessary to win when it counts. If it means playing exciting rugby, then we'll play exciting rugby, but if it means playing 'winning' rugby, we'll do that as well.

Everyone only talks about innovation when we're not winning every weekend. Our aim is obviously to win every weekend and a poor 2010 certainly wasn't part of the plan. But it was a learning process and we will move forward from that.

You can't say the All Blacks have innovated from 2009. They played to the same game plan in 2010, we just didn't tackle them as well as the year before. So you just need to understand where that criticism is coming from.

PR: Fair enough. But the game has changed with the law modifications. Are the critics justified in saying the Boks haven't changed along with the law interpretations?

JS: The breakdown certainly has changed. What we've seen over the last year is that referees are giving the team with the ball the benefit of the doubt. And that's what you want to see. You want to see a team that respects keeping the ball having the upper hand.

It's going to be difficult going to the World Cup only wanting to tackle and any team that goes to New Zealand with that mindset is probably going to have a hard time.

PR: The mindset of referees seems to be as important these days as the players' and discrepancies between interpretations on opposite sides of the equator have been widely documented. All four of the Boks' pool games will be refereed by North Hemisphere officials (Wayne Barnes, Romain Poite, George Clancy and Nigel Owens ). Is that a concern?

JS: I don't think that it's a massive issue. The IRB have appointed a limited amount [of referees]. They have gone with a very small group and those guys will be conferencing all the time, talking about trends and rules they want to enforce. That'll all be taken care of now during Super Rugby and during the Tri-Nations.

None of them are refs that we haven't had before. Those referees know that there'll be millions of people watching so they will try do the best job they can, so I'm not too worried about that.

PR: Peter de Villiers has said he's getting grey hairs worrying about key guys picking up injuries, even though that means they might be a bit fresher later in the year. After your neck injury and then your calf niggle, is it fair to say you haven't had as a much game time as you would have liked this year?

JS: I don't know, hey… I was just talking to the coach saying that this season has worked out pretty well despite not having been able to play very much. After my neck injury, coming off a long lay-off was almost the prefect way to return. Sitting on the bench for a few weeks, starting a few…and then just as I got going and stopped thinking about my neck every time I got into a scrum or a tackle, my calf decided I needed a break as well.

Having an extra two or three weeks off has left me feeling really fresh. You know, mileage is not something I need at my age.

PR: Some guys haven't had the 'luxury' of injury breaks. Someone like Victor Matfield has started almost every game this year…

JS: Not only this year, the last four or five years! Victor will probably be the first to admit that he isn't as fresh as he'd like to be. I suppose the up side of the Bulls not making the play-offs is he'll have two or three weeks off.

There is still some time before the World Cup too. And I know Victor – a guy who is as campaigned as he is, he'll know what to do mentally to get the best out of his body. He's only got a few Tests left, so he'll make sure he does them well.

PR: You say there's time before the World Cup – can we interpret that as a hint that the coach might rest a few guys during the Tri-Nations?

JS: Considering how the injuries have gone, I don't think Peter will have the luxury of being able to pick and chose or rest here and there. I think it's really going to be a case of who is fit and in form in terms of who makes the first team for the away trip.

It's a little different to four years ago. The last Test is just two weeks before our opening World Cup game so you don't want to play around too much with your team. We need to get some kind of preparation. The European sides are going to have had six or seven weeks of training together in camp, warm up games and all that kind of thing. So we'll have to be very clever about how we approach the Tri-Nations, it'll be a big part of our preparations.

PR: New Zealand is a tough place to visit. Unlike most teams the Boks have managed to sneak a couple of wins there in the last few years (2008 and 2009). Does that give you confidence?

JS: We take solace in the fact we have played there so much more than any other team. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have basically live in each other's back pockets over the last decade so we've got a huge amount of experience. So we know what to expect.

It is a very tough place to play rugby. You have to be accurate for sevens weeks. We'll certainly take confidence that we've able to beat New Zealand at home in the last three or four years but you can't chose who you play and we're not even guaranteed to face them. But if it happens we'll definitely draw on those memories of when we did win.

PR: In an ideal world you wouldn't play the All Blacks at all..