Ken Borland

The SuperRugby Conference system is bad for South African rugby as a whole, Bulls director of rugby Jake White believes, because it does not encourage the local franchises to work together.

SuperRugby is now a competition within a competition, with playoff spots depending on where teams finish in their respective conference, which means matches between South African teams are of increased importance. White, a former Springbok coach who battled with provincialism during his tenure from 2004 to 2007, believes this is unhealthy.

“The one thing that has changed since I was last involved in SuperRugby with the Sharks in 2013-14 is the Conference system. I’m not a fan of it, I believe you should play everybody else and the top teams from wherever get into the playoffs. We know the current tournament is not having the same impact as the old SuperRugby. Sometimes less is more and with more and more teams and games being added, it has led to teams not playing everyone.

“It also means that you don’t want the other South African sides to do well, whereas in the old days you would want the South African teams to knock over the opposition on tour and there might even have been some information shared on that. I don’t think it’s good for our rugby as a whole. But at least the six-team domestic competition they are working towards will give us some sort of rugby,” White told Saturday Citizen.

While the new Bulls boss hasn’t even had one session with his players yet, he warned that he is going to use all the knowledge he has gained coaching in Australia, France and Japan to the team’s advantage.

“I’ve picked up things in all the countries I’ve worked in and that could have a massive advantage for the Bulls. I’ve always been known as a pragmatic coach but you have to be. The reality is that a certain formula works and I believe if someone calls you a pragmatic coach, whatever the sport, then you are on the right track. You look at coaches like Jose Mourinho, by nature he likes to be ordered and structured and he’s had exceptional success,” White said.

The irony of landing up at Loftus Versfeld is not lost on White, who was often at loggerheads with the union and their players while he was Springbok coach.

“It was not my favourite place for no other reason than we had our differences at that stage, when I was just a young guy trying to do my best for the Springboks. But I’ve never underestimated the passion and loyalty of their supporters and the Bulls have always been a top provincial side,” White said.

The well-travelled 56-year-old has set about transforming the struggling Bulls, with signings such as Springboks Marcel van der Merwe and Gio Aplon confirmed this week, while former coach Pote Human has been let go.

White is not done yet, though, and on Friday the return of former Springbok flank Arno Botha was announced.

“Arno is a proud son of Loftus, and there is no doubt that the fans will be ecstatic to see him back. He started his rugby journey here and played all of his junior rugby in blue. There were big things expected from him from a young age, and he has now grown into a complete and well-balanced loosie. It’s no secret that we are in the process of building something very special at Loftus, and Arno is going to be a huge part of that,” White said.

Bulls coach Jake White on Thursday said he is confident his decision to bring utility back Gio Aplon and tighthead prop Marcel van der Merwe back down south for SuperRugby will bear fruit for the new-look Pretoria franchise.

White has first-hand knowledge of the qualities of the two Springboks, having seen both shine in French rugby when he was in charge at Montpellier up until 2017. The World Cup winning coach then took Aplon, capped 17 times by South Africa, with him from Grenoble to Toyota Verblitz when he first moved to Japan for the 2017/18 season.

Van der Merwe, who played seven Tests in 2014-15, joined Toulon from the Bulls in mid-2016 and became a regular for the powerful outfit. The 29-year-old can only have benefited from the emphasis on set-piece play in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Gio is a very talented rugby player and I’m surprised he did not play more Test rugby for South Africa. People may question his age because he’s 37-years-old but I’ve worked with him for the last three years in Japan and he is still in very good shape and is as professional as anyone in looking after himself. Plus given the nature of rugby in Japan, those three years should allow him to play for longer.

“So that’s why I’ve brought him over for one more year of top rugby and it’s not as if we have to pay him something over the top either. I believe he can have the same effect as Schalk Brits and look at the impact he made at the Bulls last year. Gio has that sort of personality which I just feel can be very important to the group I’m getting together,” White told The Citizen on Thursday.

Van der Merwe may be coming from the trenches of French rugby but SuperRugby is arguably the toughest competition in the game, with a big attrition rate among the forwards and White is ensuring he has two top-class tighthead props now.

“The old saying that the most important position in a rugby team is tighthead prop and the second most important position is the reserve tighthead is true. So we now have a very good Springbok in Trevor Nyakane there and another Springbok in Marcel so we are in a comfortable position. Marcel was a massive force at Toulon and won all sorts of championships with them.

“At 29 years old he is still reasonably young as a frontrower and he has played all over the world, so he has had to adapt his game and he is older and wiser now, with a massive amount of experience. But the most important factor for me is that he has an unbelievable, burning desire to play for South Africa again, he is very driven to get back into the Springboks,” White said.

Gio Aplon may be only 1.75 metres tall and weigh just 78kg but he is a feisty individual who is able to produce moments of magic on the rugby field, often enough to convince a famous ‘sizeist’ like Jake White to sign him for the Bulls.

While White was Springbok coach between 2004 and 2007 he made no secret of his belief that a good big ʼun was always better than a good little ʼun, but it seems Aplon first convinced the resolute coach of his merits while playing for Grenoble in France between 2014 and 2017, when White was coaching Montpellier.

When The Cistuses and White split ways not entirely amicably, the coach went to mentor Verblitz in Japan, and signed Aplon early on in his stint.

And now that White has been appointed director of rugby at the Bulls, he has once again brought Aplon with him. The Pretoria-based franchise announced on Wednesday that Aplon will join the team from June or as soon as he is able to travel back to South Africa, saying in their statement that he “epitomised the phrase ‘size doesn’t matter’ with his explosive speed and nimble feet allowing him to score tries from almost anywhere on the field, taking on the biggest and the best the game had to offer”.

Aplon has played 17 Tests for the Springboks, scoring five tries. But his last appearance for South Africa was back in late 2012, although he was part of Rassie Erasmus’s training group in 2018, without making a match-day squad.

The Bulls have developed something of a penchant for bringing veteran players to Loftus Versfeld, from Victor Matfield to Adriaan Strauss, Duane Vermeulen and Schalk Brits, and Aplon continues the trend as he is 37 years old.

Aplon spoke of his respect for the Bulls and what the brand has achieved in the statement, while he has previously spoken of how much he enjoys playing under White.

“The Springboks won the 2007 World Cup because he is such a fantastic coach. System-wise he is exceptional, he has implemented a good programme. He isn’t just there to fill up the post as head coach, he is there with the purpose of making Verblitz better and, as players, we feed off that. Jake is a serial winner and to be coached by him was one of the reasons I went to Japan,” Aplon told SA Rugby Mag.

Cheslin Kolbe, who is even smaller at 1.71 metres and 74kg, has made a massive impact with the Springboks and White will be hoping Aplon, although 11 years older, will prove of similar benefit to the Bulls while also serving as a mentor.

Rugby in the age of Covid-19 will be a non-spectator sport but at least there are some signs that action will return to the fields and our television screens soon.

New Zealand, thanks to their excellent leadership and general good behaviour of their citizens, are once again being the world-leaders and the great news came out of the Land of the Long White Cloud this week that prime minister Jacinda Ardern is set to announce an easing of their Lockdown to Level 2 on Monday, which allows for the resumption of competitive sport.

Rugby – and more particularly SuperRugby – has been in quarantine since mid-March, but now it looks likely that New Zealand’s franchises will return to action perhaps as early as the first weekend in June. NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said the players would need three to four weeks of training to be ready for contact and to put on the sort of spectacle rugby fans are so desperate to have back in their lives.

The competition will be called SuperRugby Aotearoa and will involve New Zealand’s five franchises – the Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Crusaders and Highlanders. They will play each other home and away over 10 weeks, with two matches every weekend. But all matches will be played in closed stadiums.

South African rugby fans will have to be more patient, however. While New Zealand this week reported no new Covid-19 cases, South Africa is still living with a pandemic that is still causing more cases (437 announced on Friday) and deaths each day. We’re just going to have to accept New Zealand once again having a headstart on us.

While it is obviously disappointing that spectators won’t be able to watch live at the venues, the first priority has to be to get rugby on the go again, even if it is just on television. To that end, WorldRugby this week put out a statement from their medical experts that all rugby should be played behind closed doors. Even then, they say a minimum of 167 people (58 players, eight stadium operations staff, 41 people working for television, 16 medical personnel, 10 administration staff and four security guards) would be needed at a stadium to put on a high-level game of rugby, so that can’t happen until government allows gatherings of 200 people.

There are also conditions attached to the return to training, which initially will have to be non-contact with masks, and moving from pairs to small groups to full squads.

It looks likely that the two Tests the Springboks were meant to host against Scotland in July will now be played in the summer, but the Rugby Championship is still scheduled to be played in August/September. If our domestic franchises only return to action in July (which is probably the best-case scenario), then the All Blacks will have a massive conditioning advantage over the world champions. But the cash-strapped sport’s need to return to international action is so urgent that those imbalances just have to be accepted.

An additional problem in this country once rugby returns behind closed doors is access to the games. Not being able to go to the stadium is one thing, but most rugby fans cannot afford pay-TV, especially in ever-tighter economic times. Should at least some matches not be broadcast on free-to-air television?

One of the major axes I have to grind with SA Rugby is how they have allowed potentially their most valuable brand after the Springboks, the Currie Cup, to wither into near insignificance. Hopefully when our four SuperRugby franchises plus the Free State Cheetahs and Southern Kings, play their replacement tournament later this year it will spark the revival of the greatest domestic competition.

One only has to watch the sheer passion and intensity on display in the re-runs of Currie Cup finals from early in the last decade to realise what it meant to the players, even the Springboks who were allowed to take part back then. Hopefully once crowds are allowed to attend as well, they will show similar enthusiasm.