Ken Borland

SuperRugby has made a much-awaited return to our TV screens and consciousness with no-hopers the Melbourne Rebels sensationally beating the Crusaders in Christchurch, while the Varsity Cup has also enjoyed a thrilling opening round of action.

But the last week also saw the launch of an equally-important competition for those outside that pair of high-profile tournaments – the Cell C Community Cup. Those who denigrate this competition as being merely amateur club rugby should perhaps watch some of the high-quality fare on offer while also remembering the wise words of rugby doyen Hugh Bladen, who pointed out that the very roots of the game are in tournaments such as the Community Cup.

In his excellent address at the launch at Wanderers Club, Bladen reminded the audience that clubs are the backbone of world rugby, it was through them that the game spread, while the sport began as mass inter-town events that would see a pig-bladder wrestled from one side of a village to another.

How much focus is put on schoolboy rugby (and the awful use of steroids that leads to) and whether the Vodacom Cup should actually exist are two bones of contention of mine and I wish there was more attention paid to club rugby instead. Unfortunately, the vested interests of 14 provincial unions, all with bloated payrolls to look after, means this is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Bladen told some wonderful stories about the spirit or gees that is typical of club rugby and this is what even those players who have reached the greatest heights of the game miss most once they have retired.

The Absa Cape Epic mountain bike race also had their launch this week and a number of former rugby stars have registered for this gruelling event that comprises eight stages from Table Mountain through the unique landscapes of the Western Cape, over mountains and through valleys to the finish in the Winelands. They are all taking part because the event provides them with the team spirit they miss from their rugby days.

“This is the closest sport to what I was able to get out of my rugby career – the adrenaline and the camaraderie are addictive and it feeds the competitive monster in me,” World Cup-winning Springbok captain John Smit said.

“Every person tells you you’re crazy to do it, you expect to die, but the race has got the spirit and camaraderie to get you through. That’s what you look forward to and a week after the race you miss everything about it,” fellow 2007 World Cup-winner Butch James said.

“Mountain biking has become my passion, I absolutely love what I do now. It’s about courage and commitment, and rugby players have that,” 1995 World Cup hero Joel Stransky said.

Apart from the wonderful scenery they get to enjoy when they’re not head-down staring at their front wheels, the rugby legends also make significant contributions to charity.

“I get so many requests from charities, that I formed my own – Barney’s Army. So I’m riding for them and there are three beneficiaries, the Chris Burger/Petro Jackson Fund for rugby players who suffer spinal injuries, the LIV Village for orphaned and vulnerable children and Operation Bobbi Bear which provides a safehouse for abused children between the abuse and the courthouse,” Smit explained.

Several of the rugby legends are riding for Barney’s Army, while Marius Hurter and Colin Charvis are riding for Sparks for Children’s Health, which raises funds for medical research, and Stransky is competing for the LumoHawk Foundation he started four years ago to raise funds for the education and sporting needs of underprivileged children.

The rugby legends will all probably feel as battered and bruised on March 22 as they did after taking on the All Blacks, but their competitive spirit will be quenched, they would have contributed greatly to charity and the further exposure of our beautiful country, and they will all have a tremendous jol as they once again #ConquerAsOne.

It’s going to be a bumpy road to the Momentum One-Day Cup playoff for the Dolphins, Lions and Titans, who are all in action on Friday night as the competition enters a critical stage with World Cup and SA A call-ups playing havoc with team selection for the franchises.

The Nashua Cape Cobras must rate themselves as being virtually assured of automatic entry to the final as they enjoy a nine-point lead at the top of the log with three matches to play.

Last season’s joint champions have won five of their seven matches, including an excellent five-wicket win over the bizhub Highveld Lions last week at the Wanderers, when they were missing a large proportion of their first-choice side.

But the fortunes of the three teams below them in the standings – the Dolphins (16pts), Lions (15pts) and Titans (13pts) – have fluctuated wildly and one of the franchises needs to get a solid run going in order to cement themselves into second place.

Lions coach Geoff Toyana will be hoping that it will be his team, that has been boosted by the return of several key players, that will take control of their destiny with victory over the Chevrolet Knights at the Wanderers on Friday, while Titans coach Rob Walter will be aiming for similar success as they take on the Cobras in Cape Town in a match-up that is a repeat of last season’s washed out final.

The fact that SA A play their next limited-overs match against the England Lions in Potchefstroom on Saturday means that Toyana is able to use star bowlers like Eddie Leie and Kagiso Rabada, while Hardus Viljoen is also fit again to further boost their attack and experienced campaigners Alviro Petersen and Thami Tsolekile also come back into the line-up.

Toyana said on Thursday that his team’s chances of possibly moving into second place will all come down to their ability to focus on their own skills and getting the execution of those right.

The Knights come to Johannesburg with their hopes of making the playoff all but gone after just one win in seven games, and they will be without key batsman Reeza Hendricks.

Toyana is not going to write them off, however.

“The Knights are a very dangerous team and very competitive in 50-over cricket. They can still get to 20 points so it’s a crunch game for us. If we don’t win then we’re not going to go far in this competition, so it’s important we do well and keep our destiny in our own hands,” Toyana toldThe Citizen on Thursday.

The Unlimited Titans travel to Newlands fresh from a morale-boosting win over the Knights in Kimberley, but are going to have to find replacements for key players like Marchant de Lange, Theunis de Bruyn and David Wiese, who are all with the SA A side.

Albie Morkel is set to make a return to domestic action and the Titans are going to have to decide, depending on pitch conditions, whether to play a second frontline spinner in Tabraiz Shamsi or another seamer in Ethy Mbhalati, while Graeme van Buuren (slow left-arm) and Grant Thomson (medium-pace) are both batting all-rounders competing for a single place.

The Titans will be hoping for more of the same from openers Jacques Rudolph and Henry Davids, who put on 77 for the first wicket in 14.3 overs against the Knights.

The Cobras have more players unavailable than most, but they have been able to make do thanks to the excellent depth they enjoy down in the Western Cape.

Openers Richard Levi and Andrew Puttick have been making bucket-loads of runs, while this season has also seen Sybrand Engelbrecht make strong progress.

Justin Kemp, the old warhorse, can still cart the best of bowlers around the park, while Robin Peterson is another experienced, dangerous campaigner for the Titans to be wary of.

The Sunfoil Dolphins travel to Port Elizabeth to face a Chevrolet Warriors side that has been boosted by the return of Rusty Theron from a knee injury and the availability of Simon Harmer.

Both sides have been in danger of having their 50-over skills decomposing due to lack of use as neither of them have played in the Momentum One-Day Cup since the end of October, but while the Dolphins still have the title to aim for, the Warriors can realistically only build for next season having won just one of their five games thus far.

Against the strengthened Warriors attack, the Dolphins will be relying heavily on three hugely experienced batsmen – Morne van Wyk, Daryn Smit, who had his 31st birthday on Wednesday, and Vaughn van Jaarsveld, who turns 30 on Monday.

http://citizen.co.za/317374/bumpy-road-momentum-one-day-cup-playoff/

Marchant de Lange is one of the most promising fast bowlers in the country, but the new quotas that will be in force for domestic cricket from next season will ensure that the national selectors will seldom get a chance to see him in action, unless it’s in amateur or club cricket.

The new quotas demand that every franchise field six players of colour, including three Black Africans, in every starting XI, which is no doubt a worthy gesture towards ensuring cricket is representative of the country’s demographics, but, as with most attempts to fiddle with finely balanced systems, it will have unintended consequences.

One of these is that a 24-year-old strike bowler who has already taken 24 wickets in 10 matches across all three formats for South Africa is unlikely to play much franchise cricket next season.

De Lange plays for the Titans, who will in all likelihood fill their quota of Black Africans with two pace bowlers – Ethy Mbhalati and Junior Dala – and wicketkeeper/batsman Mangaliso Mosehle, who incidentally averaged 20 in the Sunfoil Series, 24 in the Momentum One-Day Cup and just six in the RamSlam T20 Challenge last season.

Cricket teams, much like food chains in nature, are a delicate balance and few teams will field more than four pace bowlers, with the Titans surely giving one of their other spots to Rowan Richards, the left-arm swing bowler and player of colour. De Lange is also competing with David Wiese and new signing Chris Morris, and the Titans are unlikely to pick him ahead of those two quality all-rounders.

Cricket South Africa already stand accused of trying to con the South African public that they really care about transformation after the World Cup shambles involving Vernon Philander and Kyle Abbott and Aaron Phangiso not playing a single game, and now they have rushed to implement a system that they didn’t even research.

I have it on good authority that Corrie van Zyl, the general manager of cricket, was caught totally unawares by the new quota proposal – it wasn’t even on the agenda – and I am certain that CSA did not even do the research I’ve done on what franchise teams will look like next season, because they then would have picked up that highly promising players of colour like Diego Rosier, Beuran Hendricks, Dane Paterson and Dane Piedt are also going to be negatively affected.

Hendricks and Paterson, who are both surely looking to play international cricket, are going to struggle to get into the Cape Cobras side for the same reason as De Lange – two pace bowlers’ slots will be taken by Mthokozisi Shezi and probably Tshepo Moreki.

Across all the franchises, it seems inevitable that teams will play two Black African pacemen, which is going to create an imbalance.

Some of the other talented cricketers who will not get regular franchise cricket are Sybrand Engelbrecht, Shaheen Khan, Keegan Petersen, Lizaad Williams, Daryn Smit, Calvin Savage, Daryn Dupavillon, Vaughn van Jaarsveld, Corne Dry, Duanne Olivier, Gerhardt Abrahams, JP de Villiers, Roelof van der Merwe, Heino Kuhn, Graeme van Buuren, Shaun von Berg, Qaasim Adams, Andrew Birch, Ryan Bailey and Colin Ackermann. That is a major loss of strength for the competitions that feed into the national team.

The Highveld Lions are the one franchise that is not going to be affected by the new policy because they are already ahead of the curve when it comes to transformation. I went to their annual awards dinner this week and what a fabulous night it was with all the different communities in South Africa strongly represented.

But we are not going to succeed in making all our teams look like that and enjoy the on-field success of the Lions when administrators decide to implement drastic policies without even subjecting them to prior research or consulting the leading cricket brains in the country.

The four franchises in Sunfoil Series action from today are all disappointingly depleted due to the withdrawal of the Proteas and the South Africa A squad, but the bizhub Highveld Lions are targeting this weekend as a crucial time in their quest for their first four-day title.

The Lions are second on the log, just 2.72 points behind the Titans, who are not in action this weekend, and victory over the Nashua Cape Cobras in Potchefstroom will put them in prime position as the competition nears the halfway mark.

Lions coach Geoff Toyana is missing seven frontline players, but most of the replacements are well-versed in franchise cricket and he is aiming high against the defending champions.

“It’s always tough missing players, but I’m happy with the depth we have and we still have quite an experienced top six. This is a big game for us, it will define our season this competition. We beat the Cobras at Newlands in our last game, so our confidence is high and I just hope our skills match that,” Toyana told The Citizen yesterday.

Gulam Bodi, Dale Deeb, Vusi Mazibuko, Pumelela Matshikwe, Sean Jamison and Devon Conway are the players called up by the Lions, while the Cobras also have a host of players excluded by national commitments or injury.

Cobras coach Paul Adams has, however, been able to call on players from his RamSlam T20 Challenge winning team like Sybrand Engelbrecht, Dane Paterson, Lizaad Williams and George Linde, while much is expected of two players from the Western Province side – batsman Keegan Petersen and all-rounder Shaheen Khan.

Adams said he is looking for more partnerships from his top-order batsmen as the Cobras aim for their first win in their third match this season.

The Dolphins have made a strong start to the competition with 27.08 points from two games and they travel to East London to take on the struggling Warriors.

The Warriors have probably been the least affected by national call-ups with just Simon Harmer and Wayne Parnell unavailable and the Eastern Cape side have called up Border off-spinner Gionne Koopman, while the pace bowling duties will be in the hands of Andrew Birch, Basheer Walters and Aya Gqamane.

The healthy covering of grass on the Buffalo Park pitch will test the Dolphins, who have lost three key batsmen in Morne van Wyk, David Miller and Khaya Zondo, while bowling spearhead Kyle Abbott is also unavailable.