Ken Borland

When Lizo Gqoboka arrived in Montpellier on a short-term deal in September 2019, he was very much the new kid in town but there was a friendly South African fellow prop and man about town who helped him out considerably in Jannie du Plessis.

Gqoboka was signed by the French club as cover for the duration of the World Cup and stayed with the good doctor and his family in the city near the Mediterranean coast, and not only did Du Plessis show him the ropes at the club, but they also spent a lot of time discussing scrummaging.

And now on Saturday the Bulls loosehead prop and the veteran Springbok tighthead will be going to town on each other if they are both on the field at the same time when the Lions visit Loftus Versfeld in the opening round of the Rainbow Cup.

“I enjoy scrumming against Jannie, I did it a lot in training at Montpellier and we played against each other in the Currie Cup semifinal in January. So we know what each other can bring at scrum time, but with such experience, Jannie always has something in his back pocket. It’s difficult to scrum against a guy like him who has the attitude of always learning and getting better all the time.

“With Jannie there at the Lions, he plays a massive role in their scrum, he’s so experienced and very smart. It’s not just about power with him, you can feel it, he is very technically sound. So the young guys at the Lions like Carlu Sadie are really learning from him. The Lions scrum is very good, they have a good system and it’s going to be a nice challenge,” Gqoboka said on Tuesday.

But the Bulls scrum certainly have the credentials to win the crucial scrum battle this weekend, as they showed when they had the upper hand against the Lions in that Currie Cup semi-final and when they dominated the set-piece against the Sharks in the final. The home side might be without Springbok tighthead Trevor Nyakane due to injury, but Mornay Smith showed his ability to step up when he performed strongly off the bench in the two decisive Currie Cup matches.

“We know we can’t relax, every scrum is going to be a war so we have to show up and concentrate,” Gqoboka added.

Danie van Tonder continued to provide free tuition out on the golf course to his fellow Sunshine Tour pros on the art of winning as he claimed the Vodacom Championship Reloaded title by four strokes at Huddle Park on Friday, his third trophy in the five-event Rise Up Series.

It has been an extraordinary run of form for the 29-year-old, Van Tonder becoming the first player to win three times in one Sunshine Tour season since Oliver Bekker in 2017, and he has certainly learnt how to win with something that is now approaching monotonous regularity.

Going into the final round at Huddle Park with a three-stroke lead after a 40-foot eagle on his last hole in he second round, Van Tonder immediately took control on Friday with a birdie at the par-four first hole. An eagle on the sixth and a birdie on the ninth, the two par-fives, completed the perfect front nine when leading, and he ended the round with a six-under 66, playing immaculate, bogey-free golf.

“Everyone wants to try and win every time they play, I wanted to win five-out-of-five, but it’s very hard in this profession. But I had to teach myself the right mentality on the course, I do get cross but now I try to use that to my advantage, hitting the ball further and straighter. I’m very aggressive out there and I just try and make the impossible possible. I’m very happy because I’ve been working and practising hard and I’ve played good golf,” Van Tonder said on Friday after winning another R95 100, which saw him top the Rise Up Series order of merit by more than R132 000 from second-placed Darren Fichardt, who missed the cut at Huddle Park.

While Van Tonder’s game-plan is to simply overpower golf courses, he also had the gall on Friday to not drop a single shot, in fact he made just one bogey the whole tournament, despite his aggressive approach. It was telling that Jaco Ahlers won the Betway Birdie Challenge for the Rise Up Series, with 79 across the five tournaments, but could only finish second on Friday despite shooting a superb 65. The difference is that while Van Tonder ‘only’ made 77 birdies, he is eliminating the mistakes that separate the winner from the also-rans.

“To have three wins, I have no words, and I knew I had to make birdies today because Jaco played very well. Fortunately I don’t hit the ball so skew, I hit it as hard as I can and straight, and I’ve always made lots of birdies. But I saw that my mistake was making bogeys as well, and so many of those are unnecessary bogeys.

“To shoot 21-under-par shows that I’m not making bogeys, there are always birdies out there. My chipping has also always been good, I have a 63⁰ lob-wedge and when I have that in my hand I feel like I have an 80% chance of chipping in,” Van Tonder said.

Brazilian veteran Adilson da Silva shared second place with Ahlers on 17-under after shooting a 66, while Jacques Blaauw finished in fourth on 16-under and rookie Malcolm Mitchell was one stroke further back after both of them closed with 68s.

Former Springbok captain John Smit believes rugby will need to be drastically streamlined once it resumes after the Covid-19 pandemic, while his fellow World Cup winner Joel Stransky is hoping for a quicker, less contact dominated game when action gets underway again.

Typically for the great South Africans they are, the two World Cup winners were busy handing out food parcels in Lonehill for the One Cup of Pap charitable initiative when they spoke to The Citizen about what they were hoping for once rugby is allowed to take place again.

Smit’s focus was on the effects of the suspension of play and how rugby organisations are going to have to adjust not just their schedules but also the very structure of the game in their respective countries in order to ameliorate the tough financial conditions that will be prevalent.

“Covid-19 has been a massive storm that has had a massive impact on our game, showing us how we have taken certain things for granted. I think it’s important to remember that rugby is largely a product of the players and wherever the sport is not streamlined enough, guys are going to have to make cuts.

“Decisions are going to have to be made about not just the survival of those in the game at the moment. Where the game is running fat, where most of the money is going, that’s where there have to be cuts and I think we all know where those places are,” Smit, a former CEO of the Sharks, said cryptically.

Former flyhalf Stransky wanted to see a pacier game in which there will be more exciting backline play.

“I don’t think the game will change so much although there will be more screening and testing, we will be more aware of the risks but there will still be running, scrumming and tackling. I would just like to see the space on the field used more. Rugby has become very predictable with defensive structures so well organised. The players are now very physical and tend to just bash it up.

“There is not too much backline excitement anymore; players like Cheslin Kolbe at the World Cup, stepping and beating players, using the space, are few and far between; normally the backs just kick the ball through now and hope for a mistake,” Stransky said.

The 1995 drop goal hero said he hoped being deprived of live rugby would encourage people to go back to the stadiums when the action resumes, and Stransky said he counted himself now amongst the people who used to just watch on television (when not broadcasting) but he would now be taking the family to games.

“There’s still going to be massive drama but every sport is in the same boat and we’re no different to other industries – we have all taken a knock. It could take years to bounce back but as soon as there is sport to watch live then hopefully people will be more inclined to go to the stadiums. I know I will be taking the family once rugby is back,” Stransky said.

The Eastern Province Kings team played with white armbands in their Currie Cup match against the Blue Bulls in Pretoria over the weekend to support their fellow players and the coaching staff who have not been paid for a month, captain Tim Whitehead revealed after the match.

“We were wearing white armbands because only the 22 who played in this game have been paid and we wanted show our support for the coaching staff and the non-playing members of the squad who haven’t been paid for over a month,” Whitehead announced, unprompted, at the post-match press conference.

The Kings produced a superb first half before ultimately being beaten 48-27 by the Bulls.

The Kings team began the Currie Cup campaign having not been paid for months and went on a mini-strike in August as they had still not received their due money. The crisis continued in September but less than a week ago, the Aveng group were announced as new sponsors of the Kings.

But it is more than two months since EP Rugby president Cheeky Watson announced that the signing of “possibly the biggest sponsorship partnership for any franchise this country has ever seen” was “imminent”.