Ken Borland

Increased intensity is what the Springboks will be working on ahead of the second Test against Georgia at Ellis Park on Friday, because the British and Irish Lions are the team who are the benchmark for that at the moment, forwards coach Deon Davids said on Sunday.

The Springboks returned to action with an efficient enough 40-9 victory over Georgia in Pretoria in the first Test, with a slow start probably being a question of rust and having to get back into the swing of international rugby.

“We could see the higher tempo and intensity of international rugby when the British and Irish Lions started their tour on such a high note against our Lions, they played some very good rugby and we saw they have some quality players. But we must understand that the Springboks have just come back, they haven’t played for a long time and we could see that at the beginning of our game.

“We had to get used to the level of intensity and physicality, we spoke about it at halftime and the players responded tremendously. We saw the longer the game went on, the more into our stride we got and the more physical we were. There are obviously things we will look to apply in the second game and the players themselves have said there are definitely things they can do better,” Davids said.

The forwards coach said he was pleased that Georgia had extended the Springbok pack, especially in the set-pieces.

“They certainly challenged our set-pieces. But our lineout had a 94% success rate and we scored two maul tries, while in the scrums there was only one penalty against us and four or five for us. It’s a process of building towards the Lions series and overall we are pleased,” Davids said.

Outstanding lock Franco Mostert echoed the satisfactory outlook.

“It’s going to take a while still but there are no excuses not to get to that required level. Hats off to the forwards, we really did our job, the mauling was good, but there is still stuff to work on for us to get to that level we need. The Lions are a world-class side and we’ll definitely have to step up, but we are happy with our first game and there is still one to go against Georgia,” Mostert said.

South Africa are disappointed to be 1-0 down going into the second T20 against Pakistan at the Wanderers on Monday, but they are still positive that they can turn things around, senior spinner Tabraiz Shamsi said on Sunday.

The four-wicket loss at the same venue in the first T20 was the Proteas’ second successive loss to Pakistan, after they were also beaten in the ODI decider. But, as Shamsi pointed out, both those defeats have come with South Africa fielding an inexperienced outfit missing seven first-choice players, while the tourists are pretty much at full strength.

“Obviously it’s not nice being 1-0 down but there are three more games and there’s no reason why we can’t win all three. The losses have been close games that could have gone either way, and the positive is that we are playing a young team while Pakistan have the strongest side they can put out. So we’re still quite positive, even though it still hurts whenever we lose.

“So we’re not happy, it’s not as if we are singing or dancing in the changeroom afterwards. But all the games have been close, we’re not losing by huge margins, so it means the guys coming in are performing up to international standard. It’s just small moments when we are not clicking, but that will come with playing together more, with more game time,” Shamsi said.

It’s fair to say that South Africa are not winning the big moments, which is a sign of inexperience. But it also means the senior players – the likes of Andile Phehlukwayo, Shamsi, Heinrich Klaasen and Beuran Hendricks – need to step up even more. Not that they are hugely experienced either, sharing just 95 caps between them.

“The current situation is that guys with 15-20 caps are senior players. But we all have to go out there and learn from these experiences. You do not learn these things from Playstation and sometimes you learn more from defeat. It’s always just one or two overs where we are slipping up, so we are not far off. It’s just about execution on the day and that can change quickly,” Shamsi said.

The Bulls are going into the Currie Cup final with just one change to their team for the semi-final – Johan Grobbelaar starting at hooker and Schalk Erasmus going to the bench – which means disappointment for Sevens Springbok Stedman Gans.

The outside centre has been one of the stars of the season for the Bulls, but was a late withdrawal from last weekend’s semifinal against the Lions with a hamstring strain. Coach Jake White said on Thursday that Gans has not recovered enough for him to be willing to gamble on selecting him.

“I don’t think Stedman is ready, it would be a helluva risk to play him, especially since there’s often extra time in finals. So he’s not available, it was a tough call for him and I’m sure he’s very disappointed. But I’ve been very happy with Marco Jansen van Vuren as well, he’s defended well, especially against the Lions, who will really stretch and test you. So he has massive confidence at the moment,” White explained.

White chose to deflect a question over what the Bulls had learnt from their loss to the Sharks in their previous meeting, a 32-29 defeat in Durban last month, by saying if one learns more from defeats than from victory, then the Bulls are the “masters of learning” given their failure to win the Currie Cup since 2009.

“We should be the masters of learning then. The Bulls are tired of losing, tired of not playing in finals, so it’s a massive game on Saturday. We’re playing at home, so it’s a great opportunity and there is a tremendous hunger in the side. It’s an incredible achievement to host the final and now the cherry on top would be to win. Remembering that guys like Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger, two of the best players I ever coached, never won the Currie Cup,” White said.

The 2007 World Cup winning coach acknowledged that winning the Currie Cup would be a highlight of his career, while adding that an international star like Duane Vermeulen had never lifted the famous old trophy as a captain.

“It would mean a lot to me to win because I have great respect for the Currie Cup. And you can see the players’ desire, which is giving them energy and an unbelievable drive to get it right on Saturday. Sometimes it’s great not to have won it before. It’s a great honour to win the Currie Cup, you think about the great players who have drunk out of the trophy …

“It’s a long time since the Bulls last won the Currie Cup and then you look at someone like Duane, who has won the Currie Cup twice and a World Cup, but he’s never won as captain. And the players can see what that means to him, so they are lifting their game. When your captain is a legend like that and he wants it so badly, you’re going to do whatever you have to do,” White said.

Bulls team – David Kriel, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Cornal Hendricks, Stravino Jacobs, Morné Steyn, Ivan van Zyl, Duane Vermeulen (captain), Elrigh Louw, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Sintu Manjezi, Trevor Nyakane, Johan Grobbelaar, Lizo Gqoboka. Bench: Schalk Erasmus, Jacques van Rooyen, Mornay Smith, Jan Uys, Arno Botha, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Marnus Potgieter.

Nielsen Sports, the provider of analytics for the sports industry, recently gave their annual presentation on the biggest trends in sports business and the two major talking points over the last year are the rise of e-Sports and the fact that sports bodies and their sponsors have to know who their fans are in this rapidly evolving marketplace.

Their research shows that, on average, only 10-15% of any sport’s fans are actually ‘game experts’ – people who have intimate knowledge of the rules, history, players, tactics etc. So any sports body or sponsor that only targets this section of the fan base are clearly missing out, for instance, on the 30-35% of ‘connection fans’ – for them it’s about the big event and they are the people packing out the stadia for Pink Day, the Cape Town Sevens rugby or the Durban July.

In the past, the relationship between a sport and a brand was based on the sponsor wanting visibility and the sport just wanting money. But this relationship is now much broader and the rights a sports body sells need to be more flexible and more tailored to their specific partners. Sponsors these days want to own stories and content rules in this digital age in which internet advertising spend overtook that for TV worldwide last year.

It was disappointing to hear that our traditional sports like rugby and cricket are battling to grow in this environment. In South Africa, 25% fewer millennials are interested in rugby, and cricket has seen the same drop in support.

The fastest growing sport in the world is e-Sports, which is basically what professional, competitive gaming is called, and unfortunately, rugby and cricket just don’t have games on the market that are good enough. Research has shown that there is a strong crossover between people who play the virtual game on their computers and supporting the actual ‘live’ sport. For instance, Fifa’s eWorldCup drew seven million gamers last year and Formula One enjoyed similar success with their eSports Final, the winner of which gained a one-year contract as a simulator driver for McLaren.

That e-Sports is rapidly evolving into a major player in the sports industry is shown by the fact that one-third of all their fans came onboard in the last year and they are typically millennial men with money to spend. Which means major global brands like Gillette, C-Smart and Mercedes are moving into that space, the higher LSM also attracting sponsors like Audi and Mountain Dew. Gaming is a $32 billion industry now and at the competitive level it is a mega-production, a whole show with adverts, sponsored decks and kids packed into stadia.

This year’s Overwatch League features 12 franchises based in cities like Boston, London and Shanghai who paid $20 million each to participate. The broadcast rights were sold for $90 million and the average audience is 280 000 per minute.

Speaking of broadcast rights, this field has also become extraordinarily broad for sponsors and sports bodies. Pay TV’s influence is still stable, but there are disruptors now in the picture, especially tech giants like Amazon and Facebook and even Twitter.

The cellphone has become a way of life and we are living in a mobile-first generation. Although high data costs hold us back in South Africa, 20% of local football viewers watch via internet streams, with 69% of those people watching the game live and 42% of those watching the whole game.

Rugby has 25% of its viewers streaming the game, 68% of that watching live and 48% for the whole game; cricket’s figures are 22% streaming, 78% of that live and 40% watching the full game.

The sports industry is certainly a very fluid environment for rights-holders and sponsors to get their heads around.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-kzn/20180623/282484299488829