Ken Borland

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.

Cricket South Africa independent director Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw has already caused controversy with her access to the organisation’s funds and now it has emerged that her Social Justice and Nation-Building initiative launched with much fanfare and cost on August 28 is yet to get off the ground.

Kula-Ameyaw, who was appointed – not elected – as a temporary, non-executive independent director in May, placed an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper without Board nor executive approval, costing the cash-strapped organisation R521 000.

While she seems to have escaped any censure for that impropriety, she was reported to the Board’s Social and Ethics Committee last month for tweets that were critical of sponsors Momentum.

Kula-Ameyaw has been the driving force behind SJN, an independent complaints system headed by ombudsman Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza that was meant to ensure transformation programmes are impactful and would also be in charge of a restoration fund for those previously discriminated against. Nine ambassadors, all high-profile former players, were also appointed.

But according to one of the ambassadors, who did not want to be named, they are still in the dark as to what SJN is meant to do and what their role in the initiative will be.

“We’ve had one Zoom meeting in which we were introduced to Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw and the advocate but it has not been pinpointed exactly what we are meant to do. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes and we were confused because we all want to know what our roles are. This was in the first week of September and they said they would get back to us.

“But we are still in limbo. We think they will ask us how we work out who has been discriminated against, but I guess it’s still early days,” the ambassador told The Citizen.

A request was sent to CSA on October 7 for an update on the SJN initiative’s progress. But despite being promised a response by noon the following day, and then by the end of last week, CSA have still not provided any update.

CSA did respond to a question on Kula-Ameyaw’s social media indiscretion and whether the Board’s Social and Ethics committee were going to take action by saying, “The matter is receiving the necessary attention from our Social and Ethics Committee. Once all internal processes have been followed and completed, the appropriate steps will be taken.”

Despite being one of the newest directors on the board, Kula-Ameyaw was tipped to become the lead independent director when elections are held at the AGM on December 5, but her recent slip-ups may well cause the Members Council to pause for thought about electing her.