Ken Borland

Despite a highly-encouraging first-half display by the SA A team before they understandably depleted their energy reserves, Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus said he remains concerned about how he is going to manage his squad ahead of the first Test against the British and Irish Lions on July 24.

The SA A team raced into a 17-3 lead in the first half against the Lions at Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday night, but the second half saw them desperately clinging on in defence, eventually securing a 17-13 win. Getting the match fitness up and dealing with the numerous Covid cases within the squad will continue to require a delicate juggling act by Erasmus and head coach Jacques Nienaber, who is now out of quarantine and will retake the onfield reins.

“The guys put their hands up and showed their guts, and we do have a lot of players to come back into the mix. But there are guys I’m worried about – Malherbe, Mbonambi, De Jager, Snyman, Kolisi, Vermeulen, Pollard, Mapimpi and Frans Steyn – it’s about how we reintegrate those Covid cases because they are coming back in dribs and drabs as they get released from quarantine.

“So I’m 70-80% happy with the squad, but the other 20-30% are going to need really good management. We have two options to play on Saturday: the Bulls have gone into quarantine for us as back-up, but if there are cases in the Stormers camp then it would be safest for us to play the Lions again. If we don’t play them again, it definitely won’t be because they are afraid, it will because of their plans for the tour. It won’t be because we’re more physical than them,” Erasmus chirped.

As heartening as the SA A team’s display was, since it was basically a shadow Test team if all the players Erasmus mentioned don’t make it back for the first Test, the World Cup winning coach knows that courage and determination will only win the silverware if they are reflected on the scoreboard.

“We don’t want to run away with our emotions. We knew we would run out of steam and that made the match tighter in the end, but we played with a lot of heart. I’m proud of that, but we won’t win the series on that alone. There are a lot of technical and tactical things we need to get right,” Erasmus said.

The first week of the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings have been a mere aperitif for what I sense many people are hoping are more sensational revelations from next week when former players start appearing before Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, the ombudsman appointed by Cricket South Africa.

But in many ways, this week’s “scene-setters”, as Ntsebeza has called them, have provided vital testimony because they have given a factual account of the transformation policies of CSA and how they have changed through the years. There have been successes, but there have been failures as well and surely no-one can question that the national team is not as transformed as it should be nearly 30 years after Unity.

The SJN commission did not have a promising start though. The first witness was Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, which was fair enough because the SJN was largely her idea. But the former CSA independent director produced a couple of hours of largely incoherent testimony riddled with factual errors. As a former Board member, how does she not know that the players’ association (SACA) don’t pay the players’ salaries?!

She then thought it would be appropriate to give Ntsebeza a cricket bat, signed by her, to commemorate the occasion. The ombudsman looked bemused and it was telling that he never mentioned Kula-Ameyaw’s presentation again during the week.

It was onwards and upwards from there though as Advocate Norman Arendse, former CSA president and current independent director, and Max Jordaan, CSA’s head of transformation, spoke of the steps taken to ensure equal opportunities for all before cricket was captured and the likes of Kula-Ameyaw took the reins.

Mary-Anne Dove, a doctor of sports and exercise science whose thesis was on the role of socio-ecological factors in talent development in sport, gave insights into how targets or quotas have to be accompanied by development and other interventions, and Zola Thamae, a former Board member and manager of the Proteas women’s team, gave shocking evidence of how the women’s national team was treated a decade ago.

Professor Richard Calland, an expert on sustainable governance and organisational culture, gave an interesting presentation too.

It is clear that CSA have made a meal of transformation, but it does not matter how many Black player quotas or targets they have, the failure of the Proteas to be truly representative of the country is firstly down to socio-economic issues.

Jordaan, who has been at CSA for 20 years, apart from the disingenuous comment that “nobody is missing out on selection because we are juggling numbers”, made the salient points that when the Proteas won the ICC mace for being top of the Test pile, targets were in place, and that transformation has to start at the many non-former-Model C and private schools and at clubs, but CSA runs into difficulties when they try and improve facilities in these areas due to recalcitrant city councils and the lack of support from the department of education.

Jordaan gave the example of a cricket facility in Welkom being taken over by the local council, who built a casino instead on the land, and buildings in townships “disappearing brick-by-brick”.

Instead of just congratulating themselves for having ticked the box of having a certain number of Black players in the Proteas and domestic teams (which is not a valid measure of transformation success because teams are forced to meet the racial targets), cricket needs to firstly make sure the pipeline at grassroots is working.

I believe CSA have actually done okay in this regard and have worked very hard to keep the pipeline flowing. But there is no doubt Black players still predominantly come from the former Model C and private schools – a much smaller pool.

This is due to structural, systemic problems that only national and local government can fix, especially with the currently constrained financial resources of CSA.

The frustration of Black African cricketers was evident in the presentations of Johannesburg coach David Mashiyi and former player Zonde Mbekeni.

The fact that Mbekeni feels as frustrated and angry about the lack of opportunities for Black Africans as he did in his playing days back in the 1970s is not okay.

But in many ways it boils down to a struggle for scant resources and opportunities.

British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland said the squad was told before the tour to expect a couple of Covid cases within their camp and he is still absolutely sure that their Test series with the Springboks will still go ahead.

Gatland said they knew the key to their tour would be their ability to adapt and he believes the squad showed that in highly impressive fashion as they went on to the field at short notice against the Sharks and demolished them 54-7 at Ellis Park on Wednesday night.

The match against the Sharks was only confirmed as going ahead two hours before kickoff following a hectic day of testing and retesting for the Lions after the positive Covid tests for one player and one member of management, plus the isolation of their close contacts.

“I honestly believe we will have the Test series. Obviously there have been a few cases in the Springboks camp and we hope they get everything right in the next couple of weeks so we can have a good Test series. The medics said before we arrived in South Africa that we were likely to pick up a case or two and it will be all about how we deal with it. The last couple of days have been quite surreal and really challenging.

“I’m incredibly proud of how the team adjusted and, more than the result of the match, what I’m really pleased about is the togetherness of the group. My message to the team was ‘let’s use this as a positive, whatever is thrown at us, we can cope, it will not faze us’. Faced with potential chaos, we needed to adapt and change, that’s what we did and the players were outstanding,” Gatland said.

Although Gatland has made it clear none of his squad can consider themselves to have booked places in the Test team just yet, lock Iain Henderson, who captained the Lions against the Sharks, said there is no doubt players are taking their opportunities to show the selectors that they are ready to face the Springboks.

“This is an incredibly tight bunch of guys and you can see the team bonds are thriving. Everyone is trying their utmost to put their hand up and the team were able to carry out their roles excellently, even though we are still trying to get our breath at altitude. The scoreboard might not show it, but these have been two very tough games and the players are certainly making it challenging for the selectors.

“The way the guys carried themselves having to play at a moment’s notice, they could have made any number of excuses, but we made sure we kept on track with what we want to do on this tour. To pitch up the way we did after an unbelievably difficult day was great,” Henderson said.

It’s always sad when the captain of the opposing team misses the tour due to injury before it has even started, especially when it is a classy rugby player such as Alun-Wyn Jones. I was curious about the veteran Welsh lock’s second British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa because his 2009 venture ended in rather inelegant fashion.

The last time I saw Jones in the flesh – and it was a lot of flesh – was when he was running around butt naked in the Sandton Convention Centre and then proceeded to urinate under one of the banquet tables. It was the final night of the tour and there had been an official farewell function, after which the Lions retired to their own after-party.

Certain members of the media had their own ‘little’ shindig after the formalities as well, and I was wandering back out of the building when I heard noise coming from one of the halls, poked my head through the door and saw the unforgettable sight of Jones letting loose.

It was one of the abiding memories of the five weeks I spent covering that Lions tour, from the sea to the Highveld, and what an experience it was.

The tour kicked off on May 30 at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg as the Lions played against a Highveld XV, made up of players from the central unions excluding the Gauteng Lions and the Bulls. After playing the Golden Lions and the Free State Cheetahs in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein respectively, the Lions then decamped to the coast for a string of three matches in Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth before the first Test at Kings Park on June 20.

The Lions had to return to a sodden Newlands three days later to draw 13-13 with the Emerging Springboks and then the last two Tests were played at Loftus Versfeld and Ellis Park.

There was always a sea of red spectators in the stadiums and most of those jolly travellers then drank their fill in whatever establishments were nearby the match venues. I remember after the Lions beat the Southern Kings 20-8, all the pubs along the beachfront in Port Elizabeth ran dry. Even the Boardwalk Casino ran out of stock.

The wonderful thing about a Lions tour is that when your national team is done facing the best of Great Britain and Ireland on the field, there is always tremendous camaraderie after the game. What could be better than talking rugby with like-minded revellers?

One such occasion did lead to me losing face, however, and I felt as embarrassed as I hope Jones did the next morning.

It was after the Western Province match at Newlands on June 13 and the Cape Town weather was foul on that night too. But nevertheless all the drinking holes along Main Road were packed to the rafters as a crowd of 34 000 poured out of the stadium.

I found myself deep in discussion with a group of people and, pride always coming before a fall, I was very up front that I was covering the entire tour for international news agency Reuters. What an expert I was.

Standing next to me was an interesting fellow who had an unusual accent – either Australian or Kiwi (it was getting late and I wasn’t sure) – for someone watching a British and Irish Lions tour. So I asked hm what an Antipodean was doing following the tour and the words were no sooner out of my mouth when I realised what a complete idiot I was.

Standing next to me was Riki Flutey, the New Zealand-born centre, who had played for the Lions in that very match that night. Fortunately there were some sturdy pillars in this bar/restaurant and I rapidly slid behind the one next to me.

What an expert I was.

Despite that one humiliating moment, it is going to be utterly frustrating not having those crowds on this tour. But we will roar the Springboks along nevertheless, knowing that there will be many thousands of others roaring along the Lions in front of their screens on the other side of the equator.

It should still be a rollicking five weeks of rugby.