Ken Borland

A hard-hitting letter from Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa to Beresford Williams probably ices the cake in terms of sealing the fate of Cricket South Africa’s acting president, who has indicated his desire to stand for the permanent position at the AGM on December 5.

Williams was told by parliament’s sports portfolio committee to recuse himself from Tuesday’s hearing with CSA because he is implicated in the Fundudzi Forensic Report, not only for his involvement in a R5 million loan to the Western Province Cricket Association that he was formerly president of, but also being on the Board committee who appointed Thabang Moroe as full-time CEO in 2018 after he had been acting for a year despite him not meeting the minimum requirements for the post.

But Williams’ shares have fallen even further with the leaking of a letter from sports minister Mthethwa, who is clearly adamantly against Williams continuing as president. Replying to a letter from CSA, signed by Williams, which states that the CSA Board have decided not to step down and told Mthethwa he did not have the legal power to force them, the sports minister threatened: “As a parting shot, I wish to reiterate that I shall not be dissuaded from applying what the National Sport and Recreation Act 110 of 1998 enjoins me to do”.

The Mthethwa letter begins: “I note that instead of accurately depicting what was said at the meeting we had on 6 October, you have taken the liberty to put words into my mouth. To that end, I will use my response to correct some of the inaccuracies that are evident in your letter”.

Mthethwa went on to say he did not provide the directive for Williams and the Board to step down, but instead was agreeing with Sascoc’s call for this to happen.

“In addition to the National  Sport and Recreation Act 110 of 1998 you seem to selectively quote from, to show that I do not have the power to intervene, you are kindly reminded that as a sovereign country in which I am the Minister responsible for Sport, Arts and Culture, there is a raft of laws at my disposal, that empower me to deal effectively with recalcitrant behaviour within my portfolio,” Mthethwa stated.

The four main outcomes Mthethwa wants to see, according to his letter, are the full implementation of the Nicholson Commission recommendations, the appointment of a new, stable Board, effective transformation and the correct handling of the Fundudzi Forensic Report.

Apart from telling Mthethwa he did not have the power to force the Board to step down, CSA also said they viewed his intervention as government interference which probably “jeopardises CSA’s continued membership of the ICC”.

The bad news for CSA and Williams is that Mthethwa has the power to no longer recognise them as a national federation, thereby making their membership of the International Cricket Council moot in any case.

The Bulls’ hamfisted efforts at the breakdown in their opening Super Rugby Unlocked match against Griquas seem to have at least partly been caused by them wondering what the referee had smoked before the game, such was the difference in interpretation between last weekend’s match and their friendly a fortnight ago against the Sharks.

Against the Sharks, with Rasta Rasivhenge on the whistle, the Bulls enjoyed a free-flowing, pacy game because they were allowed quick ball. But against Griquas they were assaulted at the breakdowns by a pack of forwards who went hard at the ball and were able to slow the Bulls down while also effecting 17 turnovers.

Bulls coach Jake White was at pains to point out that he did not have a bone to pick with the referee last weekend, but that the difference in interpretations at the breakdown is a meaty issue for coaches to contend with.

“The side carrying the ball was definitely not rewarded as much, at one stage we had 65% possession and we were still being penalised. We’ve got to try and find out if the referees want us to have the ball or they don’t; if they’re going to continually blow the tackler for not releasing or rolling away and the defenders for offsides, then it will be better to have the ball.

“But Marius van der Westhuizen blew completely differently to the first game we played and I don’t mean to say he was right or wrong. But Griquas came hard at the breakdown and I’m going to have to sit down with Nollis Marais, our breakdown specialist, and see how we can get quick ball. We were probably a bit seduced by the first game against the Sharks, because of how easily we got the ball then it made us think we didn’t need to go in there and fetch it against Griquas,” White said.

Bulls openside flank Marco van Staden is one of the toughest players to shift once he has his hands on the pig’s bladder and he admitted to confusion all round when it came to knowing what to expect from referees.

“The new interpretations are a bit difficult to understand, for the referees also. But the good thing is it seems they are going to reward turnovers if you get both hands under the ball quickly; there’s going to be no more cleaning out from the side and the tacklers have to roll away. But that definitely favours the defending side and suits me,” Van Staden said.

The Springbok who narrowly missed out on the World Cup squad last year actually made more of an impression with his ball-carries: bulging thighs pumping and with a look of tremendous determination on his face, Van Staden used his 1.84m, 106kg frame to great effect, often pulverising the defensive line. His 13 carries were the joint most by any player on the opening weekend, along with EW Viljoen of the Lions and Jasper Wiese of the Cheetahs.

Lady Luck ultimately gave her favour to the home side though at Loftus Versfeld last weekend, but the breakdown probably tops the list of things the Bulls have to improve on if there is not to be a Bull-braai enjoyed by the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Friday night.

“I think the Cheetahs wlll definitely come with an expansive game, they will go wide and wide, and it will be a quick game. They want quick ball and we’ve got to slow it down. We have a plan,” Van Staden said.

Cricket South Africa delegates Beresford Williams, the acting president, and Welsh Gwaza, the company secretary, met their match on Tuesday when they were instructed to leave the virtual meeting with parliament’s sports portfolio committee because they have both been implicated in the Fundudzi Forensic Report, and there could be similarly bad news for former president Chris Nenzani and the remainder of the Board, including those who have already jumped ship.

CSA met with the portfolio committee on Tuesday to discuss the findings of the complete Fundudzi Report, which had been given to the parliamentarians on Friday, although it was patently obvious that very few of the politicians had actually bothered to read the report.

A summary of the report has already accused Williams of a conflict of interest in a R5 million loan from CSA to the Western Province Cricket Association, of which he was the former president. Gwaza was alleged to have misled the Board in the multi-million rand deal with Global Sports Commerce, assuring them due diligence had been done on the company and they had a bank guarantee, neither of which was true.

But new revelations emerged on Tuesday, including a potential bombshell that Nenzani had under-reported to the Board the size of a grant from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

Marius Schoeman, the independent director who chairs the audit and risk committee and led CSA’s presentation on Tuesday, said “We would like to understand why Mr Nenzani gave us a different number, there is a discrepancy because the honourable MP has given a higher number for the grants here today”.

It also emerged that fired former chief executive Thabang Moroe had been appointed without meeting the minimum requirements for the vital post, as Schoeman acknowledged. The makers of that decision by the Board included Williams, Nenzani and already-departed directors such as Louis von Zeuner, Mohamed Iqbal Khan, Dawn Mokhobo and Thando Ganda.

“It is correct that the CEO was appointed without meeting the minimum requirements,” Schoeman, who was elected to the board last year, conceded.

Partly because of how poorly prepared the sports portfolio committee were to interrogate CSA, the federation seemed to have mended some fences with the parliamentarians, especially with their willingness to engage the services of Sascoc in an advisory capacity as they look to implement the full recommendations of the Nicholson Commission and restructure the composition of their Board to ensure there is not as much crossover between it and the Members Council.

Lock Jason Jenkins admitted on Monday that the Bulls pack were slow to lay the sort of forward platform that would have made the match against Griquas in Pretoria at the weekend a much easier outing, with the home side eventually having to toil to just edge the spoils 30-23.

The Bulls backline looked dangerous in the first half, but the failure to ‘build an innings’ in the forward exchanges meant Griquas always had enough defenders on their feet to deal with the threat and they also made life very difficult for the hosts in the breakdowns.

“It wasn’t a great performance and we were lucky to get the win, although it’s better to be able to learn from a win than to have to learn from a defeat. Credit to Griquas, who made it really hard for us, it’s not that we underestimated them, we knew they were going to come hard, the Bulls lost to them in the Currie Cup last year and we knew they would be confident.

“Our physicality was up there but coach Jake [Whiite] said at halftime that we had to be more physical and direct, we had to hit their one-off runners back, win that battle first before we could start going wide. We were a bit slow to sort that out first and our attacking breakdown in the first half was very poor because the cleaners were watching the carriers and coming in too late,” Jenkins said on Monday.

While Jenkins has always been well-suited to the mundane hard graft of a number four lock, he wants to develop into a more potent ball-carrier and there were signs of that against Griquas, especially when he burst through the line to set up fellow lock Ruan Nortje for a try.

Jenkins is on loan with the Bulls until November 8, when he has to return to Toyota Verblitz, White’s former club in Japan. The 24-year-old said playing in the Japanese Top League has helped him develop more gas, which he will need to put to good use on Friday night as the Bulls visit a Free State Cheetahs side that loves to play fast-paced, expansive rugby. Jenkins – and the rest of the Bulls tight five – will need to show mobility in order to preserve the defensive line and defuse the Cheetahs attack.

“Rugby in Japan is not as bad as it was five or six years ago, they have really picked up their structures and it’s now a world-class competition. It’s not as physical, but it’s quicker and I’ve had to adapt to moving around the park a lot more.

“The Cheetahs also like to run the ball and expose teams out wide, but we will take them on up front, try and force them to play infield more, force them to play into our hands a bit more. We need to put them under pressure up front, like we should have done early on against Griquas,” Jenkins said.