INTERVIEW: FREDDIE McLENNAN:  Johnny Wattersongets views on the Springboks ahead of Saturday's Test from the former Ireland winger who went on tour to South Africa in 1981 with the decision made to stay there

THE TIME seemed right so Freddie McLennan jumped ship. It was 1981. Despite widespread condemnation from political and ecclesiastical sources, the IRFU declared they would honour their promise to undertake a seven-match tour to South Africa. The backdrop was one of protests and threats in Ireland. Nelson Mandela was still on Robben Island.

The tour party included 12 uncapped players as well as half a dozen former British and Irish Lions. But the political fallout and representations from anti-apartheid pressure groups insured a number of the players who decided to go on the tour were forced to resign from their jobs as employers declined to grant leave of absence.

Others had no option but to simply declare their unavailability.

McLennan, though, had made up his mind before leaving Ireland that he would stay in South Africa and make a new life. The Wanderers and Ireland winger saw no more than the sun on his back and that was that. He felt what many do about the long winters, brumal light, thin sun. There were better places to live.

A qualified architect, McLennan knew he wasn’t coming back. He was one of two Irish players who made the tour and didn’t return, John Robbie being the other, who went on to become what they called a non-cap Springbok.

Thirty years on McLennan lives in Cape Town where he has a family, while Robbie has become a celebrated radio show host and commentator. Now a South African for half of his life the highly-rated Irish winger continues to keep an eye on the sport that was the catalyst in taking him away from Donnybrook.

“By that stage I had just qualified as an architect. I was coming to the end of my rugby career and I couldn’t see myself getting a nine-to-five job in Dublin with nothing but grey days ahead,” he says of 1981. “I always thought I’d like to emigrate to a warmer climate.

“I was 30 years of age so I was coming to end of my career. I wasn’t looking to extend it much further. I was taking the last boat I could take; thinking if I don’t jump ship now when can I? It was opportune.”

McLennan’s last game for Ireland was against the Springboks in June of that year in Kings Park, Durban. In the first Test at Newlands, Cape Town he scored a try as Ireland lost 23-15. In the second he was concussed when a knee caught him on the side of the head.

“The last game was the only game I’ve ever been concussed in. It was a fellow called Rob Lowe. He kicked me in the side of the head with his knee and I remember looking over at Davy Irwin to see who I was playing with. I looked up at the scoreboard and saw that I was playing for Ireland and I was in South Africa. The second half I played most of it in a subconscious state. I remember Davy saying, “Stop f**king joking me, will you?’

“Then Joe Doran came on and held up a couple of fingers. I went back down on my haunches. That was the end of the game for me. I think we lost 12-10. We had an opportunity to win it at the end with a drop goal which we didn’t get and that was the end of the game.

“But I think in their minds South Africa were elsewhere. They were going on a tour to New Zealand in a week or two weeks’ time. The guys were mindful of not getting injured against a team they should beat on a normal day by a good few points.”

The state of the South African mind 30 years on has a bearing on how McLennan sees Saturday’s match against the Springboks panning out at the Aviva Stadium. A regular visitor home, his ties to Wanderers have not been broken and his interest in Irish rugby is strong. But he sees little merit in stringing a four-week tour onto the end of a long season.

“The Springboks play an incredibly physical game and they can only do that for so long without it taking its toll. I think if this was a World Cup final they’d be up for it (against Ireland). But at the end of the season, when there is nothing really on the line except getting back to South Africa . . . at commitment,” he says trailing off.

“South Africa can’t do well against the All Blacks unless they get up on the physical stakes. In the old days they could out-muscle teams to win games but that’s kind of difficult now.

“I was at the game last year in Croke Park. People like Danie Rossouw, who would normally be your Willie Duggan of the tour. He’ll always be there for you but at the heel of the hunt he’d get the plane home. I just think that these end-of-season tours are just a waste of time for both teams. They are obviously there for financial reasons. If the coaches had their say they wouldn’t be doing them.”

But Peter de Villiers is also seeking some redemption after a poor Tri-Nations. Vilified in South Africa, McLennan feels the reputation of the Springbok coach needs some hasty patching up for domestic consumption. Ireland is seen as the first team that might be able to provide that service as the situation threatens to become increasingly fraught for him.

“He is falling into a trap of trying to save his own reputation before a big World Cup,” adds McLennan. “There is no way he should bring those players. He should have apologised and brought development players. To bring so many star players over is a huge mistake. But I think that he is under so much pressure that he’s saying ‘for my own benefit I need to win some of these games overseas’, and that’s a mistake. I think most people feel he is not the man for the job. But they are not going to change him now.”

While the Springboks have been decimated by recent injuries to several key players following last week’s Currie Cup final, the pack remains feared. With captain John Smit at home injured, secondrow Victor Matfield will have the job of lifting a unit that includes the quality of Pierre Spies, Bakkies Botha, Juan Smith and Bismarck du Plessis.

“Matfield’s a very good captain. If he can control Bakkies . . . to me Bakkies Botha is one of the best secondrows. He’s an enforcer. He really is a star player and you need one of them in your pack,” says McLennan.

“But he needs a captain he respects who can say to him ‘don’t do that’. Unfortunately he’s a guy that hates touring. They tell me that when they’re on tour Bakkies always develops an injury. I think all the guys want to put their feet up but they can’t.”

A fact of modern rugby is big-money games to pay big-money players. Ireland will play 11 this year, Six Nations, summer tour and November series. South Africa have recently finished playing six in the Tri-Nations. The machine needs oiling. “He’s under serious pressure,” McLennan says of de Villiers. “It’s just compounding the problem by playing his best players.”

And all said by a straight-talking Irishman speaking like a South African, who sounds like he is still enjoying the sun.