It was instructive last week to watch the All Blacks’ and Springboks’ performances almost back to back.

In Auckland, the initially sloppy All Blacks fell behind against a spirited, defiant Wales team. They were bent out of shape and their execution was poor. Yet at no point did they panic. Coach Steve Hansen gave fresh instructions at half-time, the team brought resolution to their play and they slapped down the Welsh challenge with a swagger at the finish. It was classic New Zealand counter-punching.

The Springboks were different in Cape Town. Ireland attacked with a ferocity that was as unexpected as it was successful. You suspected the Boks would find a way out of the hole, but instead they fell even deeper, their heads awash with doubt. They were flat and aimless and unable to respond against canny opponents – playing with 14 men no less, and even 13 for a few minutes.

What made it worse was that Ireland, for all their passion, are a team you expect to beat at home. That’s not arrogant. That’s the way it is.

You wonder about South Africa’s mental fortitude at a time like this. Recent months have seen a bewildering collapse of the crucible. Argentina won a first-ever Test match in SA, 80-1 underdogs Japan produced the upset of the modern age at the World Cup and now dear old Ireland have done it too. This week saw the Boks drop to number four in the world. It’s no less than what they deserve.

All sorts of theories have been offered about the reasons – coaching fallibilities, transformation, outdated game plan, poor skills, the player drain – but I would venture to say there is another, and it affects all our sport.

The national mood is rotten. The economy is shot to pieces. Our sense of unity is fragmented. Racism is to be found at every turn. People are angry. These things have served to distract us. The team reflects the morale it finds itself in, the morale we all find ourselves in. They are not immune to it.

And it is something that extends to soccer and to cricket where increasingly the hardships are coming to bear through performance.

Fans look to our national sides for sustenance and inspiration. The country can be burning, politicians can be squabbling and the bread price may be out of whack, but just so long as our teams are winning, we prosper under the illusion that all will be right with the world. We desperately need our teams and our passions to help us escape the gloomy reality.

Teams like the Springboks require resilience above almost all else. It is a component of all great sides for it produces the ability to cope with pressure. But this quality was in short supply last week, much as it has been in recent years where the All Blacks have reigned with barely a nudge from the Boks.

Prior to unity, SA had a superior win record against the All Blacks, but that trajectory has long since stopped. The All Blacks are comfortably 53-35 up in the head-to-head count.

South Africans have begrudgingly accepted that New Zealand are in another league, but the picture changes when teams like Argentina and Ireland come here and do a number on the Boks. It used to be that the Boks could find another gear and engage it whenever they needed to, but that gear has been largely absent in recent seasons.

It could be that this sense of belief has become a part of the slow drift away from performance excellence. The Proteas are a fine example. We know all too well the mental frailties that manifest during major tournaments. It is almost a part of the team’s DNA.

So too Bafana Bafana, who play with an insouciant air that frustrates supporters. Perhaps they too take their cue from the national mood, a festering sense of doom.

It’s easy to point to the tactics or the players or the coach, but the Springbok failings are more nuanced. You probably couldn’t measure the impact of the zeitgeist on performance, but as South Africans we all feel it in our bones.

And it’s bloody awful. – © Sunday Tribune