Ken Borland

Like migrant birds flying from their wintering grounds to their summer breeding spots, the Bulls find themselves in a very warm and muggy Treviso and they are hoping to bring the heat and catch Benetton by surprise in their Rainbow Cup final at the Stadio Monigo on Saturday evening.

Having swept all before them in South Africa over the last year, the Bulls have gone to Italy as the winners of the southern leg of the competition, to take on the European winners, a Benetton side that have surprised all and sundry with their resurgence in the last couple of months.

The last trophy presentation the Bulls enjoyed was when they won the Currie Cup at the height of our summer, and their winter work has involved finishing top of the franchises involved in the Rainbow Cup. But the temperature is expected to rise to above 30⁰ on Saturday in north-eastern Italy, so that will take some adapting to. Coach Jake White said though that he hoped the intensity of the Bulls’ play will force Benetton to do some adapting of their own.

“The nice thing is we played through the summer in South Africa so we’re used to weather like this. I hope we can play with the same tempo and pace that we did then and hopefully that surprises Benetton. We’ve had a year of really tough derby rugby, so hopefully that helps us as well. Having been together as a team for a lot longer now, our ball-in-play time has also improved and we’ve seen the effect of that.

“But Benetton have done really well, they’re the only unbeaten side, they beat Connacht, who beat Munster who had just beaten Leinster. Plus Benetton are playing at home while we have to adapt to travel, and 11 of their team started for Italy against Scotland not that long ago, so we are up against international players. Now that we’re in the Northern Hemisphere, it will be good to measure ourselves,” White said on Friday.

While the Bulls are breaking new ground for South African rugby, they do have some experience in the kitty of what to expect in the form of captain Marcell Coetzee and lock Jan Uys, who have both played in Italy before.

“It’s fantastic to have Marcell’s experience, he played here for Ulster, they won by three points and it was a struggle. Jan Uys also played in this competition, in Italy, for Brive and that experience is a must-have, especially with no Duane Vermeulen, Morne Steyn, Marco van Staden and Arno Botha. When I was coaching in France, we played against a couple of Italian sides and they do present a bit of a different package in terms of strategy,” White said.

“It’s actually the first time I have experienced so much heat in Europe, but there are no excuses, we have to adapt if we want to be champions,” Coetzee said. “I told the players we will need to control our emotional levels, we need to be relaxed and calm, but we are going to be in some dark places and then it’s about who wants it more. Fortunately this team has been playing finals and winning … ”

Faf du Plessis was a surprise exclusion from the Proteas T20 squad for the tour of the West Indies, but the former captain could still find himself jetting over to the Caribbean, plus a new contractual arrangement for free agents is on the cards.

Apart from adding experience to a rebuilding batting line-up, Du Plessis was one of the best batsmen in the recently-suspended Indian Premier League, so why wasn’t he chosen? It turns out his omission was due to him not having a contract in place with Cricket South Africa, and, according to their current policy, that would mean he would not get paid for the tour, but would earn match fees, which are just top-up amounts for those players who do have national deals.

It is a gap in CSA’s contracting system which director of cricket Graeme Smith is trying to fix in consultation with the South African Cricketers Association (the players’ union).

In the meantime, there is a chance that Du Plessis can reignite his T20 World Cup hopes by getting a late call-up to play in the West Indies. For that to happen, the national selectors would have to agree to add him to the squad and Du Plessis would have to agree to special financial terms CSA will offer. The organisation budgeted for 17 national men’s contracts for the season but only awarded 16 of them, and some of the money from that extra ‘salary’ is believed to be on offer for Du Plessis.

With the rise of lucrative T20 leagues there are likely to be many more free agents in future, but they currently fall outside of the Proteas contracting system, in what one CSA official described as “the elephant in the room that everyone has been avoiding”.

The policy at the moment sees the players ranked from No.1 to No.16, depending on the balance of Test, ODI and T20 matches in the next season, using scientific data methods. But free agents are excluded from this.

It’s another problem that Smith has inherited as director of cricket. Checks and balances obviously need to be in place to ensure the free agents are not just using the Proteas to score lucrative T20 contracts elsewhere, but are actually contributing to the national team’s culture and success.

There is also the danger that if players are given format-specific contracts, then many could opt out of Test cricket and just play the white-ball formats.

On the other hand, the Proteas need to have marquee players that the top teams want to play against and that people want to watch in action, developing a strong team is obviously a key strategic objective of CSA.

South Africa Women’s coach Hilton Moreeng says he and his technical staff are having to find innovative ways to prepare the team properly as the Proteas ladies eye their return to action on January 20 when their ODI series against Pakistan starts at Kingsmead in Durban.

The three-match ODI series is followed by three T20s, with all of the matches being played at Kingsmead, as the Proteas Women play their first competitive cricket since their nailbiting ICC World T20 semifinal loss to Australia on March 5 last year.

“Being in a bubble is a challenging environment and we have to follow a new normal which is very strange for everyone, training with masks and everything. But it is an opportunity to play cricket and we are just educating the players, this is a new experience for them. Our last three days of training have been very good and our preparations are on track, I’m very happy with how things are proceeding.

“The most important thing is that the team has had a year out of action with no competitive cricket, so just to get out on the park is a big thing. We have had a lot of camps, which went well, but you can only see so much in those. I’m looking forward to a lot of youngsters now getting the opportunity to actually play. And at the end of the day we’re just playing to win,” Moreeng said on Monday.

There are at least two spots available in the batting line-up due to the absence through back injuries of captain Dane van Niekerk and the hard-hitting Chloe Tryon, even if those players coming in are just leasing their spots from two world-class performers who will be missed.

“It’s a big loss but mostly for the individual players because we don’t know when their next opportunity to play will come. But their absence does give an opportunity to others to play and that only makes the team stronger. A couple of youngsters have put their hands up in our camps. Of course competitive cricket will always be another level and rustiness will be there.

“We wanted to take our momentum from the T20 World Cup and keep improving while we build for the next World Cup [the 50-over edition in New Zealand next year], so not playing for a year has been a blow for everyone, but we can only control what we can and that’s the attitude we want the players to have. At the end of the day, safety must come first and we are just thankful for the opportunity to play,” Moreeng said.

WorldRugby may have this week opened a window for the Rugby Championship to take place in New Zealand between November 7 and December 12, but the situation is still far from ideal for South African participation. But commercial imperatives dictate that the Springboks simply have to find a way to get over there and play, otherwise SA Rugby will suffer devastating financial losses.

It is the Sanzaar competitions that bring in the bulk of South African rugby’s revenues and with SuperRugby having been scrapped after just half-a-dozen rounds, it is the Rugby Championship that needs to save the broadcast deals through providing some live content.

As SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux said recently, the Rugby Championship is a very expensive competition to run, but the broadcast revenues are significant enough that the commercial value compels Sanzaar to continue the event. The difference between revenues and expenses is the reason SA Rugby can use the Rugby Championship to cross-subsidise several other competitions.

One of those competitions is the Currie Cup, which used to be an event of industrial proportions in South African rugby, the envy of the world. Sadly SA Rugby has over the years allowed the jewel in their crown, their most valuable property after the Springboks, to fade into relative insignificance.

But the imminent demise of SuperRugby is likely to bring a resurgence in domestic competition and a Currie Cup style tournament this year is going to play a crucial role in the Springboks returning to action; hopefully that local action will continue to be a focus in 2021 and beyond.

Even though playing in Europe seems to be the big prize at the moment, and private equity investors in our franchises are already saying this is essential for them to get a return on their money, hopefully SA Rugby will still put energy and resources into having a strong purely local competition.

In the meantime, the top eight teams in South Africa are going to play a tournament later this year to at least get rugby back on the go locally. Apart from providing some content for SuperSport, who pour millions into the game, those eight teams are also going to play a vital role in getting the Springboks ready for action.

With New Zealand and Australia already back playing rugby for half-a-dozen weeks and South African players realistically only returning to action in mid-September, there have been understandable concerns expressed that the Springboks are going to be on a hiding to nothing if the Rugby Championship is played this year, being so far behind in terms of preparation. There have been angry mutters about their World Cup win being tarnished.

But the reality of the situation is that even if the Springboks are going to disappoint in terms of on-field results, they simply have to return to action and our television screens, it is a financial imperative. And they have played for financial reasons before, most recently when they lost to Wales in Washington in June 2018.

New Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has said a squad of 45 players are going to have to travel to New Zealand and quarantine before entering their bio-bubble, and there have even been complaints from local coaches that that will decimate their provincial squads. As is often the case in South African rugby, the unions are going to need a reminder that they are there to serve the national cause, any local competition this year is mostly about getting the Springboks ready for action.

Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos certainly knows the value of the Springbok brand and last weekend he was stressing the importance of them returning to international action before the end of the year. And as we saw at last year’s World Cup, in which they were certainly underdogs, the ability to rise above the obstacles in their path is a great property of the Springboks.

“By no means will the playing field be level, but the Springbok side have a deep, steely resolve, and I know Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber will optimise whatever time they have to be as competitive as possible,” Marinos said.

Nienaber says the players in the Springbok squad need at least six games beforehand in order to be able to play in the Rugby Championship. They are unlikely to get much more than six matches unless rugby somehow resumes later this month, but at least they will be going to New Zealand feeling fresh.

And there is a large gap between the Rugby Championship kicking off and the end of SuperRugby Aotearoa and SuperRugby Australia. The New Zealand competition ends on August 16, with no final, while the Australian final will be held on September 19. Whoever handles the double-edged sword of rust versus fatigue best will have a large advantage, and I wouldn’t write off the Springboks just yet.