Ken Borland

The Sharks rugby team may have endured a terrible Currie Cup final last weekend, but their star fullback Curwin Bosch was all smiles on Tuesday after a thoroughly enjoyable day out on the first day of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series Pro-Am at Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate.

The country’s top rugby players will be off to Europe to play in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship barely a week after the end of the Currie Cup, so Bosch was enjoying the opportunity to play some of his second-favourite ball sport.

“It’s really nice to have some off-time and be able to do what I love doing in my spare time – I play a lot of golf. It was a really nice experience today to mingle with the pros and I didn’t play too badly either. Fortunately Mount Edgecombe is my home course and I got one birdie. Overall I really enjoyed it,” the six-handicapper said.

Being accustomed to lining up pressure kicks at goal, Bosch should be used to the horrible nerves that can come with having to make clutch putts. But the lanky 24-year-old says putting is not as awful for him.

“I think the mental side comes into it more so with my driving and long irons, putting is actually a bit easier for me. I do hit my drives a long way, but not often as straight as my kicking,” Bosch, who is known for having a mega boot, chuckled.

Rumour has it that Bosch outdrove his professional by 20 metres on one hole.

With rugby now becoming an all-year pursuit, Bosch said he was also interested to see how golf professionals, many of whom have to grind it out week-to-week, approach the game. Work ethic is one thing that stands out for the Springbok.

“It’s nice to see how the pros go about it, that’s the fantastic part, seeing how they go about things on the course. You see how much thinking is done before every shot and talking to them was a great experience. The hard work, the many hours they put in to hone their game, you have to admire them. I have a better understanding of the things they go through now,” Bosch said.

The Sharks, having been humbled in the Currie Cup final by the Bulls, will now head to Europe with a clean slate and looking forward to butting heads against some different opposition, coach Sean Everitt said after their 44-10 defeat at Loftus Versfeld at the weekend.
The Sharks and the Bulls have consistently been the best sides in South Africa over the last two years, but the Sharks have not managed to claim any silverware, losing two Currie Cup finals at Loftus Versfeld in nine months and finishing second in the Rainbow Cup.
“We’re looking forward to Europe now, there will be a new energy and fresh competition, plus the Sharks are a team that normally travels well. But we will be looking for a massive improvement on this performance.
“We have quite a few youngsters in our team so every game is a learning experience, an opportunity for them to get better. Our first game is against Munster and we will stay in Ireland in quarantine for a minimum of 10 days, but we will be able to train in that time so it’s no problem,” Everitt said.
While Bulls coach Jake White praised his team for an “almost perfect” display in the final, Everitt tended towards the opposite side of the spectrum.
“In all areas of our game we were not up to scratch. It was down to individual errors, our fundamentals let us down. We had opportunities in the first half but we just couldn’t nail them down, while the Bulls had four shots at us and scored three tries thanks to poor defence.
“I always thought that the team that won the first 30 minutes would have the best chance of winning the trophy, that was an important part of the game. But conceding soft tries, all three of them from lineouts, was really disappointing and not the start we wanted. The decision-making on defence was just wrong,” Everitt said.

Springboks mentor Jacques Nienaber said after the loss to the Wallabies that he was content his team created enough opportunities to win, which they wasted, so there is no need to change their game-plan, a view which was endorsed by wing Sbu Nkosi.

A penalty after the final hooter by Quade Cooper snatched a 28-26 win for Australia on the Gold Coast at the weekend and it was clear South Africa may be the world champions and No.1-ranked team, but they still need some guidance in terms of getting used to that tag and the target it paints on your back, as well as factors such as playing in front of away crowds again and the greater pace of the game in Australasia.

“The loss boils down to execution and we don’t need to go back to the drawing board. We have got a solid plan in place that led to us winning the World Cup, we’ve had a lot of success with it in the past. But we are still learning to be world champions, we are still growing that extra leg which is the ruthlessness to put teams away.

“It’s hard to say Plan A didn’t work when we scored three tries. We don’t need a Plan B, it is just our discipline that lost us the game. We all have a responsibility to get our forwards into a position where they can exert their dominance,” Nkosi said.

Nienaber also pointed out that far from being the dashing advertisers of running rugby that the Wallabies like to portray themselves as, the home side also used the kicking game extensively at the Super Stadium.

“This is a tough place in which to win and Australia are a quality side with good coaches and they obviously prepared well. They can mix it up – they can play expansively or use a conservative kicking game like they did tonight. I thought we adapted well when they went to a kicking game, which they also did against the All Blacks, kicking from scrumhalf.

“The thing we didn’t adapt to though was the referee and the assistant referees’ interpretations in terms of discipline. But we would have learnt a lot of lessons about making big decisions under pressure. Sometimes you have to pay dearly for those lessons though … ” Nienaber said.

Australia is enough of a nanny state to make even your most law-abiding South African granny to want to rebel and there was a graphic illustration during Tuesday’s press conference of just how strict a quarantine the Springboks are under in Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast, especially after they suffered a false positive Covid scare that forced them to miss training on Monday.

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber was interrupted by a stern voice over the tannoy saying all guests must now remain in the main building because the laundry service has now arrived. Nienaber laughed as he explained what the squad have been through since arriving in one of Queensland’s most luxurious resorts.

“We’re under a testing regime here and unfortunately the Saturday results only came back late on Sunday and there was a possible positive test so we all had to isolate on Monday and not leave our rooms. The guy was re-tested and it was a false positive because he has had Covid before. Normally we can walk around outside but there are no luxuries and we can’t use the swimming pool.

“We are in a red zone, which no-one is allowed to enter, not even the staff so we clean our own rooms. We have meals in an orange zone, we have to dish up ourselves in the two dining rooms and we eat at the same time as the Argentinians, who we are quarantining with. There is a gym on the premises though and one rugby field, so we share those too with Argentina,” Nienaber said on Tuesday.

The good news is that after quarantine, which ends on Friday, September 10, two days before their first Test against Australia, the Springboks will be able to live life normally, moving around outside, enjoying restaurants and coffee shops. They will obviously be delighted with that and Nienaber said the squad is also really looking forward to taking on the best of the Southern Hemisphere again, which they have not done since 2019.

“It’s always nice to test yourself against Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. We missed out last year, which was hard for us. Playing against these guys in Super Rugby, we are so accustomed and used to it. Without it you kind of wonder where you are currently. It’s nice to measure ourselves against Southern Hemisphere teams again.

“Not playing against them means we have not been exposed to individual players, we haven’t seen their skill sets, even though Super Rugby is different to Test rugby. The Rugby Championship is a different tournament, we know how tough a competition it is, against the best of the Southern Hemisphere, three sides in the top seven of the world rankings,” Nienaber said.