KEY POINTS:
Positive discrimination is alive and well in the Springboks camp and they will continue to pay a high price for it until new coach Peter de Villiers comes to his senses.
No, this isn't a black and white issue. It's the one in which the new Springboks boss
continues to promote Butch James in the No 10 jersey, a move that can only be seen as an effort of giving every headbanger out there a belief that one day, they too might grace an international football field as their nation's chief rugby playmaker.
Calling all disaffected props, loose forwards and hookers. You too can be a first five-eighths and win a world crown.
Most people wouldn't give James a second thought as a world champion test pivot if they saw him plying his trade in a Super 14 fixture.
Matt Giteau, Dan Carter, Butch James ... all together now "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong" to steal a line from the old children's TV song.
James not only stands between his opponents and their sense of well being, he is the monolith that has the Springboks rooted in their dour past.
The irony is that while South Africa makes extraordinary strides in the makeup of a national team that was iconic of its shameful racist history, it cannot break free of its historical inclinations in playing the game.
For all the Bryan Habanas it might produce, it will be of little use if a Butch James is parked in the supply line. You will no doubt read headlines praising the stout-hearted Wallabies for giving Robbie Deans a great opening to his proper test coaching career.
And the Aussies were superb in the way they shut down Ricky Januarie, targeting and guarding against the little halfback's sniper runs the way Graham Henry's team didn't, exposing the Boks as one-trick ponies and revealing the true extent of the All Blacks' demise.
But for all the praise that must be extended Deans' way, South Africa blew that test in Perth with all the gusto of the Fremantle doctor.
South Africa are average world champions. They have plenty of muscle but unfortunately for them, some of it is in the wrong place.
The Perth test was the stereotype of all stereotypes. No side can match Australia in the art of hanging on by fingertips that can turn into deadly scoring weapons at the merest chance. As for South Africa, they've won two World Cups and certainly aren't as bad as the All Blacks when it comes to blowing the big occasion. But for all the delights of their wonderfully brutish approach, the time is long overdue when they find finesse to their steamroller game. South Africa could be twice the side they are with an accelerator rather than a handbrake at first five-eighths, and they actually looked it briefly when the mop topped Francois Steyn was given a chance against the All Blacks. The Wallabies were ripe to be pummelled into submission in the first half hour but the Boks beat themselves.
There are world champions and there are world champions. South Africa didn't win last year's World Cup through class. They won it via a tryless final because the rest of test rugby was in a completely rotten state once the All Blacks veered down a road of ridiculous preparation.
The telling story of this South African side is that they are better without the ball than with it. As world champions, they are doing little for rugby as an enticing spectacle, still relying on the aerial ping pong that just about ruined the last world tournament and playing for turnovers.
God knows how Habana manages to win international awards because the brilliant wing is largely wasted by the Springboks. The recent English rugby side formed more meaningful relationships in their Auckland hotel rooms than Habana has with the players around him.
Central to this attacking malaise is James, whose swinging arms and boot should be consigned to the scrap bin.
South Africa will be hard to beat at home in this Tri-Nations, but so they should be. Yet they will never release their full potential with a grappler at No 10 like James, whose selection is symptomatic of the way they play the game. The Springboks often get over the advantage line, and have powerful runners charging in support. But come that vital moment to roar off into the sunset, and it turns into yet another false dawn. James isn't even a great tactical kicker.
Just as England rested on their 2003 World Cup laurels, so South Africa is failing to take their game forward and once the magnificent bulwarks of their current pack disappear, they will likely be left in the same precarious place of a few years ago.
Australia are an entirely different proposition though. They put out an average side in Perth, were often disjointed, lost their stupendous captain midway through, were handicapped by a dodgy halfback and fullback, and still beat the world champs by two tries to nil.
Given the opposition it faces from strong rival codes, Australia is a truly remarkable rugby nation. They've also got the best coach in the world.
Australian rugby has to scrap for its life and use its brains to survive both on and off the field. If South Africa had any brains, it would do away with its No 10 scrapper.
* Big-time golf is dead, they said, without Tiger. And then along came the Shark. Greg Norman's surprising bid for a third major title, at the tender age of 53, will be one of the sports stories of the year no matter how it turns out this morning.
The British Open has been a welcome relief from Tiger Woods and the American golf commentators. It will be great to have Woods back, but it's been nice having a break from a Tiger obsessed golf world. The conditions at Royal Birkdale have been wild and interesting, a bit like the curmudgeonly-yet-humorous TV commentators. They are authentic, in their manner and observations. What a terrific weekend of watching and listening.
