Ken Borland

According to coach Jake White, the Bulls team expected a “bollocking” from him at halftime in their Currie Cup match against the Free State Cheetahs at Loftus Versfeld at the weekend, but a return to the basics saw them romp to a 40-13 victory in the second half.

The Bulls started the match well, racing into a 13-3 lead in the first quarter, but they then allowed the Cheetahs to dictate affairs and the visitors had pulled level at 13-13 at the break.

“Just before the game I think I gave them a bit of a scare when I told them a thunderstorm could stop the match so we needed to be in front at halftime. We were up 13-3 but then we started defending and waiting for halftime. I think the guys were a bit scared of the weather, they were a bit naïve and psychologically it’s part of the learning process.

“I think they expected a bollocking at halftime but I just said that we had had no ball but when we did have possession we created pressure in their half. I just told them to go back to what they had practised, to believe in it. And in the second half everything worked, we definitely got it right. It was very pleasing, very good rugby and the bench impact was very good too,” White said after the win.

White said his team continues to learn how to come out on top in different match situations.

“Last week we had to show massive character to win with 14 men against Western Province and this week we had to work really hard in the second half and go hard to the end to get the bonus point. Overcoming these sort of challenges are all building blocks, it goes in the memory bank and it’s another box ticked. There’s that understanding how to get it done and the direction.

“Trevor Nyakane is a World Cup winner, he comes on and all of a sudden we get a scrum penalty and that changes the whole game because the scrums are very important. Duane Vermeulen played well and spoke well to the team, he brings massive composure. Nizaam Carr also brought composure and Morne Steyn was good too, it’s very good to have him back in the system,” White said.

The Sharks team look to flyhalf Curwin Bosch for direction and on Friday night against the Free State Cheetahs at Kings Park they also received a matchwinning performance from the Springbok, according to coach Sean Everitt.

The Sharks bumbled their way to a 19-13 win in a Super Rugby Unlocked match that was strewn with errors from both sides, and it was Bosch who hauled the home team over the line by slotting all five of his kicks at goal, bombarding the Cheetahs with towering up-and-unders and also providing the pinpoint crosskick for the decisive try by replacement wing Madosh Tambwe.

“When you have a flyhalf like Curwin then the team look to him for direction and he did an excellent job. His kicking was pinpoint and the chasers did very well too. Curwin is playing with a lot of confidence at the moment and if we get the contestable kicking right then we are a very difficult team to play against.

“We like to play what’s in front of us and Curwin is vital for that. The Cheetahs had good line-speed and they put him under pressure, but he won that battle and with his kicking game he’s able to counteract that rush defence,” Everitt said after the hard-fought win.

While the television broadcaster’s staff gave the impression that conditions in Durban were ideal, Everitt confirmed that it was in fact a typically humid summer’s evening on the sub-tropical east coast, which partly explained the multitude of basic errors made by both teams.

“They were difficult conditions and it was a very physical contest. In order to combat the humidity, we went for contestable kicks and they were extremely difficult to handle. The conditions were very similar to the early rounds of Super Rugby at the start of the year and it was very difficult to hold on to the ball,” Everitt explained.

The death knell sounded for the existing Cricket South Africa Board on Sunday with the resignation of five non-independent directors and the move to appoint a Board with much better practitioners of corporate governance can now gain pace, according a Members Council insider.

The resignations of acting president Beresford Williams and fellow directors Angelo Carolissen (Boland), Donovan May (Eastern Province), John Mogodi (Limpopo) and Tebogo Siko (Northerns) has left the Board with just one non-independent director in Zola Thamae and three independents – Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, Marius Schoeman and Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile.

But they are expected to also stand down before Tuesday’s deadline set for CSA by sports minister Nathi Mthethwa, opening the way for an interim board to be appointed, which will complete the adjustments to the Memorandum of Incorporation that will change the composition of the Board. The major changes will see a majority of independent directors and non-independent directors will no longer also have a seat on the Members Council, as per the recommendations of the Nicholson Commission of Enquiry in 2012.

“Not all of the directors were happy to go, but they were basically told they had to, we forced them. We will now wait for the independents to resign, and if they don’t do that then we will deal with them quickly. An interim board will then be set up and we will take a suggestion as to how that should happen to the sports minister on Tuesday. And Sascoc will assist us with that.

“There may be one or two current members of the Members Council on that interim board, but we have decided that nobody who was in office in the four years between 2016 and December 2019 will be eligible,” the Members Council insider told The Citizen on Sunday.

It seems Anne Vilas of Central Gauteng cricket and KZN president Ben Dladla, two of the stars in the Members Council’s efforts to flex their muscle against the board, could be involved in that interim board because they have only recently been elected.

There are some doubts, however, that the interim board will be able to get the new MOI formalised before the AGM on December 5, leading to a possible delay in elections for the permanent new board.

It will be interesting to see how the new independent directors, who should make up the majority of the board, are elected because there have been some far-from-stellar appointments in the last few years. The independent directors that have been there have largely failed to intervene in the governance scandals that have plagued CSA and in some instances have actually made them worse.

Cricket South Africa is in good health and the Board is staying put because of the great job they have been doing; that was the message the organisation conveyed to members of the national squad in a virtual meeting late last week, according to a Protea who spoke to The Citizen on Monday on condition of anonymity.

According to acting CEO Kugandrie Govender, the portrayal of CSA as a sickly, embattled federation is disinformation and she blamed the media for their woes, which include financial worries, a governance crisis that has forced the Minister of Sport to step in, no fixtures confirmed yet for the Proteas this summer and a Board and executive that has been wracked by resignations and dismissals.

Minister of Sport Nathi Mthethwa has been adamant that the Board should step aside and allow Sascoc to set up an interim board, with particular focus on the Fundudzi Forensic Report and implementing the recommendations of the Nicholson Commission from 2012. He has given CSA until October 27 to offer reasons in writing as to why he should not intervene.

CSA have given no response to Mthethwa’s damning statement from last week, but did try to reassure the players in a virtual meeting to which the players’ union were not invited.

“The Board were in on the call to us, and they said they are going nowhere. We were shocked,” the Protea said. “They were quite adamant about it. People like Temba Bavuma asked probing questions but Kugandrie just talked around it and didn’t answer our questions.”

CSA may have made a R50 million profit before taxation for the financial year ended April 30, according to their 2019/20 Annual Integrated Report, but their message to the players that they are in a stable financial position is based on several assumptions.

England may still arrive in South Africa in mid-November for six limited-overs matches which would bring in around R70 million for CSA, but there is no indication yet that government has approved that tour or that the scheduled tours by Sri Lanka and to Pakistan over December/January will happen. Australia are also meant to tour for a Test series at the end of the summer.

But the longer the current Board hangs on to power, and the governance scandals rumble on and on, the more damage is done to CSA’s credibilty and that has already had an effect on the bottom line with broadcasters, sponsors and supporters jumping ship.

It would seem CSA have relied on terrible legal advice from Bowmans – whose ties with CSA company secretary Welsh Gwaza, a former employee, are a concern – to bunker down and try and keep the forensic report they themselves commissioned as secret as possible.

While CSA’s directors may see themselves as corporate bigwigs not compelled to operate transparently, Mthethwa’s intervention is based strongly on CSA being a public entity, custodians of a sport that belongs to the public, and he can rely on broad support for his strong stance.