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Ken Borland



New-look Sharks hoping that level of performance does not plummet down Kloof Gorge 0

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Ken

With 13 players missing from the 23-man squad that beat the Stormers in their last SuperRugby game back in mid-March, Sharks coach Sean Everitt will be anxious that his team’s level of performance does not plummet into the depths of a virtual Kloof Gorge when they travel to Pretoria to take on the Bulls on SuperFan Saturday.

Everitt named his 30-man squad for the trip on Thursday and he will be leaning heavily on established combinations like Ox Nche and Thomas du Toit in the front row, locks Ruben van Heerden and Hyron Andrews, halfbacks Sanele Nohamba and Curwin Bosch, and Jeremy Ward and Lukhanyo Am in midfield.

“Saturday’s match is all about preparation, because we’ve been out for six months we need to reinstall and revise our game-plan. We need to make sure everyone understands it and we’re taking a few youngsters up with us to see where they are too in terms of fitting into our system. I’ll be looking at our tempo, accuracy and conditioning because we don’t know where we are right now with those.

“The players we have brought in suit the way we want to play. A guy like Manie Libbok is multiskilled, really versatile and has dangerous x-factor. He offers something in the same mould as Bosch and Aphelele Fassi when we play him at fullback. Werner Kok is also a workhorse and his work-rate epitomises the energy and enthusiasm we want to play with. He’ll start on the wing and then we’ll play him a bit at centre in the second half,” Everitt said on Thursday.

After such a promising season was washed down the basin by Covid-19, the Sharks are in a rebuilding phase and several new faces have the chance to establish themselves in the senior team. Saturday’s match at Loftus Versfeld is an important step in testing the depth of the squad.

“We were happy where we were, but we had been very fortunate from an injury point of view and were reaping the benefits of a long pre-season in which we did a lot of work on the changes to our game. We were on a roll, but dwelling in the past is not something I do, we are looking forward. It was sad for guys like Louis Schreuder, Tyler Paul and Andre Esterhuizen, who were in their last season with the Sharks.

“But it’s all a clean slate now, it’s a whole different competition because the Bulls have done some really good recruiting and the Lions too. We’re going back to the drawing board to see how we can improve. We’ve had some bad luck with injuries and we are missing some quality players like Fassi, Tambwe and Nkosi, but we started preparing a while ago with two squads,” Everitt said.

Players not considered for this weekend’s squad due to injury were fullback Fassi, loose forwards Henco and James Venter, hooker Kerron van Vuuren and wings Madosh Tambwe and Sbu Nkosi.

Squad: Ox Nche, Mzamo Majola, Dylan Richardson, Dan Jooste, Thomas du Toit, John-Hubert Meyer, Ruben van Heerden, JJ van der Mescht, Hyron Andrews, Emile van Heerden, Evan Roos, Adam Mountfort, Celimpilo Gumede, Tera Mtembu, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Phepsi Buthelezi, Grant Williams, Sanele Nohamba, Jaden Hendrikse, Curwin Bosch, Jordan Chait, Muller du Plessis, Caleb Dingaan, Jeremy Ward, Marius Louw, Lukhanyo Am, JP Pietersen, Werner Kok, Manie Libbok, Thaakir Abrahams.

Marinos says Sanzaar will continue, but whether that includes the same SuperRugby is still classified 0

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Ken

Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos said on Saturday that cross-border rugby between South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina needed to continue, but whether he was just talking about the Rugby Championship or also SuperRugby surviving in something similar to its current format seems to still be classified information.

New Zealand Rugby seem to have already taken the decision to pull out of SuperRugby, while South Africa seem to be looking more and more into throwing in their lot with European competition. Australia are desperately trying to stay joined with their Kiwi neighbours, while Argentina are probably just hanging on to whatever scraps they can get.

But Marinos disagreed with the current narrative that Sanzaar’s partners are all trying to jump ship when he spoke in an SA Rugby Legends webinar on Saturday.

“We are busy working through our 2021 plans, but the whole return-to-play is not easy to navigate, you have Product A and then 24 hours later you have to change to Product B. The challenge is cross-border rugby because of all the government and medical controls and access to flights. We have to be realistic: The individual unions are responsible for keeping rugby alive and sustainable in each of their markets and then they can look at the feasibility of cross-border competition.

“But we are working through this as a joint venture. A round-robin structure next year is not looking that optimistic because flying won’t be that easy yet. But there is a strong acknowledgement that cross-border rugby needs to be in place in the future. Playing against players from other countries only makes our nations stronger internationally, that’s what has allowed the Sanzaar nations to be the dominant force in world rugby,” Marinos said.

The former Stormers and Wales centre denied that there was anything wrong with SuperRugby as a product and said the attacking nature of the competition has played a major role in the success of the four Sanzaar nations at the World Cup.

“The impact on the bottom line has been significant but it’s not because of poor delivery or a lack of quality or interest in the product. I would unashamedly say we have some of the best players in the world and we’ve seen that at the World Cup. The strength we’ve got is that the toughness of the competition and the global expansion of SuperRugby means our players are used to adapting to different conditions and being on the road for long periods.

“The Northern Hemisphere players don’t have that benefit, they have one-hour flights and they’re away for a weekend. The conditions we play under, plus the fact we put more air on the ball – there’s a very attacking mindset and the teams are as positive as possible – has played a significant role in the World Cup results. And with New Zealand and Australia playing again, we have seen an upturn in people coming back to the game, and SuperRugby can start regenerating itself,” Marinos said.

Call for legal action highly unlikely to happen 0

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Ken

There seems to have been some misinterpretation of Jurie Roux’s comments this week to the extent that the Australian Associated Press news agency claimed that the SA Rugby CEO had made the call for legal action to be taken against New Zealand Rugby for their plans to basically pull out of SuperRugby as we know it.

The truth is likely to turn out to be almost the opposite. While Roux did say “New Zealand have kicked themselves out”, he also added that they had “every right to determine their own future” and that discussions were happening with all Sanzaar partners.

You see, the Covid-19 pandemic would almost certainly qualify as a ‘force majeure’, the trendy new legal term borrowed from the French for what we used to call Acts of God. A ‘force majeure’ is an unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstance that makes it impossible to fulfil a contract.

In terms of rugby, it is clearly impossible for SuperRugby in its usual format to happen in 2021 if international travel is not yet allowed, if there are strenuous quarantine measures still in place or if the paucity of flights makes overseas trips prohibitively expensive.

Roux did say that there are Sanzaar legal agreements in place and that if anyone ignored their commitments to them then they would be liable to legal action, but with that French word coming into play, it would clearly take some pretty soulless leadership to try and sue a union that is just trying to keep themselves afloat in this time of economic catastrophe.

The shoe is on the same foot when it comes to South Africa because even if New Zealand wanted to proceed with SuperRugby as per normal next year, our franchises probably wouldn’t be allowed into the country without quarantining for two weeks and the costs of travel would be unaffordable.

Roux is a shrewd man as well and, although he has never publicly dissed the brand, he would have been well aware that the current SuperRugby format had lost the support of the general rugby-loving public and was busy pushing SA Rugby into poverty. He admitted this week that for more than a year he has been looking at additional options for SA Rugby and said “we are a long way down that road already and some of those options probably suit us better”.
This surely means a move into the lucrative Northern Hemisphere market. The Springboks and our top four franchises have plenty to offer European competitions as well – it is not as if we are the peasants of the game, we are the world champions and one of the biggest broadcast markets for rugby in the world.

But while SuperRugby may well be discarded like the old, worn out pair of boots it is, there is no doubt South Africa want to maintain a good relationship with New Zealand, traditionally their greatest rivals. Roux spoke about how the Rugby Championship is not only a significant revenue-earner for SA Rugby but it also enables them to cross-subsidise so many of their other competitions.

Those Sanzaar legal agreements are going to force New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and Argentina, to the negotiating table to thrash out whatever win-win-win solution they can come up with. Leverage is always the name of the game when it comes to negotiation and while South Africa have the numbers and therefore the money to bring to the table in a big duffel bag, and New Zealand also have a large bag based on their historical record as having the best teams in southern hemisphere competition and therefore the biggest drawcard, it would seem Australia and Argentina only have sachets to barter with.

Nobody would want Australian rugby to be isolated like their country was before James Cook arrived with his cutlass, but the fact is they are not in a position of strength when it comes to negotiating the future of Sanzaar.

It is not too surprising that New Zealand do not want to accommodate all five Australian franchises, but if allegations that they have been in clandestine contact with a couple of them are true then that would be as offsides as the former SA Rugby president who fired the Springbok coach by fax.

Whatever comes of the negotiations, though, it would seem South African rugby fans can look forward to a stronger Currie Cup-type tournament locally, a refreshed, shorter, crossover event with the other Sanzaar teams and more of our franchises dunking their toes into European competition.

With the British and Irish Lions touring here next year, the stars of the UK game could become the same sort of attractions/nemeses as the likes of Dan Carter, Christian Cullen, Richie McCaw and Stephen Larkham.

And given the time zone, watching our teams playing in Europe will be much easier for those of us who tend to suffer from moderate dysania.

Roux not subscribing to Australasian players’ views on Sanzaar & SA 0

Posted on June 09, 2020 by Ken

SA Rugby chief executive Jurie Roux is not subscribing to the views of players and former players from Australasia that the days are numbered for South Africa’s partnership with Sanzaar, but he did acknowledge on Monday that major changes for both SuperRugby and the Rugby Championship were inevitable in a post-Covid world.

New Zealand’s SuperRugby franchises will resume play this weekend in an internal competition, while Australian teams are set to follow a similar route. There has been talk of the two countries setting up a Trans-Tasman competition and increased speculation that South Africa will cast its lot in with the Northern Hemisphere.

“As far as Sanzaar goes, we are busy with negotiations in good faith. I’m not too phased about whatever former players, current players or media have to say in Australia or New Zealand, I’m only interested in the people that sit around the negotiating table and they have a completely different viewpoint. But I always have a Plan B, you need the foresight to plan for the worst-case scenario.

“We are very dependent on the decisions of government and that changes quite regularly. But hopefully next Monday we will hear that we can return to training and then return to play in August. That would be a home-based, truncated version of SuperRugby, followed by the Currie Cup and then moving into more international exposure with the international window now moved to October/November.

“It depends on border restrictions, but there is a biosphere model for our teams to be based in Australia, Argentina or here, with a competition in the Northern Hemisphere being an alternative. The biggest influence on Sanzaar will be if New Zealand and Australia don’t open their borders until April. But it’s very clear that the pool format is not the preferred option, we had to come up with a round-robin in which all the teams play each other and it had to make commercial sense.

“We’ll make a rugby decision and then look at the commercials and logistical challenges like reduced flights and number of business class seats, plus whether teams will have to isolate, which means being in a bio-bubble, or quarantine, which means a month in a hotel room without training, will determine those. But the current format will be too tight in a post-Covid world, which is why we’re looking at different options,” Roux said in a virtual press conference on Monday.

The CEO said that the pandemic had at least provided world rugby with the impetus to move towards a global calendar.

“Covid has enabled us to do what we couldn’t do for 130 years and that’s get a global calendar aligned because all competitions are on hold, agreements have been breached or are being re-negotiated. Basically rugby in the Northern Hemisphere will move from winter to summer. The Rugby Championship will move to the beginning of the year with the Six Nations, SuperRugby will stay at the beginning of the year and international rugby will be in October/November. We’ll probably have that all done by July 1.

“We can’t make a final decision on the Springboks until government opens the borders, but by the end of July we should have a very good idea of their schedule. There are very detailed plans for the Rugby Championship to be held at a single venue. If that doesn’t work out then hopefully we’ll have local inbound tours, otherwise we can go North. Failing that we have some very exciting plans for local competitions,” Roux said.

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    1 John 2:5 – “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.”

    James 2:14 – “What good is it if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?”.

    Love without action is useless.

    If you love God unreservedly, you will offer your best to him and be willing to serve him wherever he wishes to use you.

    Love has to manifest itself practically.

    “Love requires uplifting and inspirational deeds.

    “How genuine can your love for God truly be if you are aware of a serious need and do nothing to alleviate it?”- Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm



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