Ken Borland

We have a full house of SuperRugby fixtures this weekend for the local franchises and it will be a very exciting clash in Pretoria as the Bulls, having been given a lot of confidence from their win over the Hurricanes, take on a terrific Lions side.

The Lions have a very proud record of not losing to a South African side for the last three years, while the Bulls have obviously been revitalised under John Mitchell.

I think it will be quite a high-scoring game because both sides are really committed to attack and keeping the ball alive in all situations.

Having been privileged to be able to watch a few of their training sessions, one can certainly see that what the Bulls have been working on came out against the Hurricanes, like the tip-ons and offloads. To see South African forwards display such dexterity and skills – locks Lood de Jager and RG Snyman were especially good – was really wonderful.

The Bulls have also worked a lot on their fitness; for prop Pierre Schoeman to get up and score the matchwinning try, beating five or six Hurricanes defenders to get to the ball and be the first player up in support and show up constantly around the field, was proof of this.

It will be interesting to see whether the team that the Lions announced will be the team that runs out on to the field … it’s very unusual for them to name their team on a Tuesday. It will be very exciting to see Franco Mostert at number seven, however, but I think the Lions will miss another ground player. You really need someone to slow down the ball on the highveld and it was great to see Roelof Smit back to his best for the Bulls, buying time for the defence to set.

The Lions had a really good solid win over the Jaguares and Aphiwe Dyantyi really announced himself with an even better try than he scored in the first round. To see a wing beat international wings for pace and then a sidestep is really special. You can’t coach the sort of things he does on attack, although there are obviously things he needs to work on and defensively he was out of position for the two late tries that cost the Lions the bonus point. But he is one of a lot of exciting young wings in South African rugby, along with the likes of Makazole Mapimpi and Sbu Nkosi.

The Lions might rue those two late tries though because if they end up in the middle of the table then bonus points could be crucial.

The Sharks will be looking to bounce back from their defeat in Johannesburg in the opening round when they take on the Waratahs in Durban, but they really have to scrummage better if they are to be any threat in this competition.

It would possibly have been better if they had chosen Thomas du Toit to come on at tighthead at the back end of the game because then they can start with their specialist tighthead. It would be easier for Thomas to come on when the guys are tired, because in the first 20 minutes scrummaging is certainly much harder and at the start of games, referees are really looking at the scrums.

While with the Springboks between 2012 to 2015 we did some research on how many scrum penalties were awarded at the back end of games and it was certainly a lot less. Which is why it was easier to use Coenie Oosthuizen as a replacement tighthead, although in his early years he was a tighthead at school.

But I expect the Sharks to come out firing after their bye, which would have allowed them to work on a lot of stuff. They were also certainly in the game until the last minute against the Lions in Johannesburg.

Three out of the four South African franchises were in action last weekend and they all put in great performances against overseas opposition. Including the Stormers, whose forwards were absolutely superb in the set-pieces where they really dominated the Waratahs, and were most unfortunate not to win the game. The scrum provides such promising opportunities and for the Stormers to do that against one of the strongest packs was most impressive.

But unfortunately an exit lineout went wrong, the calling system broke down, and the Stormers will rue that as being one they should have won and banked four points.

But when you destroy a pack in the scrum as Steven Kitshoff, Wilco Louw (the incumbent Springbok props) and the tight five did then it’s a really good sign away from home.

The Stormers now tackle the Crusaders in Christchurch after the two New Zealand derbies last weekend were try-fests but a lot of it was illegal. There was some quite clever obstruction around the pillars and cleaning out beyond the ball, which is the job of the assistant referees to spot. In the Dunedin game it was not picked up in two of the tries and the officials need to be a lot more vigilant.

John McFarland is the assistant coach of the Kubota Spears in Japan and was the Springbok defence coach from 2012 through to the 2015 World Cup, where they conceded the least line-breaks in the tournament and an average of just one try per game. Before that, McFarland won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls. In all, he won 28 trophies during his 12 years at Loftus Versfeld.

How a smaller wing responds when his opposite number is given space is the key factor when it comes to defence out wide, former Springbok great Breyton Paulse says.

Although the Springboks registered three convincing victories over France, questions have been raised over whether the relatively small back three of Raymond Rhule (1.87m, 83kg), Andries Coetzee (1.81m, 86kg) and Courtnall Skosan (1.83m, 92kg) will be able to handle the massive South Sea Islander wings that predominate in New Zealand and Australia.

It is a question Paulse, who stood just 1.78 metres tall and weighed 80kg during his playing days, often had to answer himself, but he was never disgraced during his 64 Tests for South Africa, despite having to play against man-mountains like Joeli Vidiri and Jonah Lomu.

“The key is to play smart and not be kamikaze. You have to anticipate very well and when you see space then you have to close that down as soon as possible. On the wing, you only have a one-on-one with the person you’re marking probably once or twice a game, so I’m not sure why people go on about it all the time.

“But you have to be aware all the time, and intelligent, like a Ben Smith. The big guys can run over you, but a smaller player has more speed so he must use it to close that space as soon as possible. But the outside centre is also key, I was fortunate to play with Jaque Fourie, who was one of the best defenders, and you get used to how each other defends,” Paulse told Saturday Citizen at a Players’ Fund and SA Rugby Legends Association training day for the Vuka development programme.

Paulse added that Coetzee, Rhule and Skosan faced all the All Blacks and Australian wingers in SuperRugby and that there had not been major problems at that level.

“I have no worries about our back three because they play against those guys in SuperRugby week in and week out. They’ve all faced massive wingers in that competition. Someone like Courtnall Skosan has proven himself to be lethal on both attack and defence and he’s very good in the air,” Paulse said.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20170624/282355449747840

Cricket South Africa CEO Haroon Lorgat’s sense of resignation when it comes to the exodus of Kolpak players is understandable given the socio-economic factors that are ranged against him, but his continued denial that anything untoward happened before the 2015 World Cup semi-final is baffling and most troubling.

His own involvement in the selection fiasco that saw the in-form Kyle Abbott yanked from the team and replaced by a half-fit Vernon Philander has still not been totally clarified, but I would be extremely surprised if he was not acting on an ill-timed instruction from board level.

But just mention the 2015 World Cup semi-final and selection interference and Lorgat has his hackles up in an instant.

It happened again in Cape Town after the Proteas had won their Test against Sri Lanka to clinch the series, their achievement totally overshadowed by the shock news that Abbott and Rilee Rossouw were shifting their loyalty to lucrative deals in county cricket.

When Abbott faced up to the media he was asked whether that fateful event in Auckland had anything to do with his decision to give up his international career, and he answered sincerely, saying there had been a lot of frustration, hurt and anger at the time, but that the team – including himself – had dealt with and moved on from all their negative emotions from that incident at their culture camp last August.

Lorgat was next up to be interviewed and, as soon as someone mentioned the words “World Cup semi-final”, they were scolded and the CEO launched into a tirade against the media for making things up. When one of the journalists, of colour, who happened to be at the World Cup and had done plenty to expose the selection shenanigans, pointed out to Lorgat that Abbott had sat in the same chair five minutes earlier and openly spoken about the issue, the CEO had to retreat and offered words along the lines of “I don’t want to talk about that now”.

But like reticent parents avoiding the sex-education talk, Lorgat is going to have to speak about it at some stage.

And the CSA National Team Review Panel report, that will be tabled before the members’ council on Saturday might just be the tool that gets Lorgat to open up, unless of course the relevant pages are lost somewhere in the toilets at head office at the Wanderers.

There has been talk of the report recommending that CSA and the board apologise to the players for what happened in Auckland. There is no confirmation of that, but I have it on record from someone who has read the findings that under the Team Culture section it indicates that it’s “strongly recommended that interaction happens either individually or in a group between players and senior members of the board and support staff”.

Speaking to members of the panel, none of them wanted to create anything controversial and all they hope is that something good comes out of their work.

The introduction of set targets has obviously helped because now the quotas are out in the open; but amongst the players there is still the lingering fear of an administrator again deciding to take the job of a selector upon himself and interfering in the make-up of the team.

The bungling of the transformation aspect of the 2015 World Cup needs to be put to bed – otherwise imagine how septic a boil it will be in the lead-up to 2019? – and an acknowledgement and apology from Lorgat for his role in the controversy would be a big step along that road.

This is the season of hope and our cricketers have certainly given cause for much optimism for the rest of the summer, and yet there are still people spreading negativity about the game in this country.

It started up again when Keaton Jennings, son of former Transvaal Mean Machine great Ray, made a century on debut for England against India last week. The South African-born expat is 24 years old and has been playing for Durham since 2012.

Following his brilliant 112 in the first innings in Mumbai, the nonsense talk started about Jennings being ignored by the South African system, without honour in his own land, if you like, with “quotas” receiving their normal share of the blame.

Just to set the record straight, young Jennings was the captain of the SA U19 team in 2011 and made his first-class debut for Gauteng later that same year. So Jennings was in the system, playing in the same side as Quinton de Kock at that stage, but to expect him just to waltz into the Highveld Lions team ahead of players like Alviro Petersen, Neil McKenzie, Temba Bavuma, Stephen Cook and Zander de Bruyn would have been naïve.

So Jennings was not denied fair opportunity, he merely made a personal decision, good luck to him, and it in no way reflects badly on Cricket South Africa.

The other bizarre negativity at the moment surrounds AB de Villiers’ selfless decision to give up the Test captaincy.

From being the blue-eyed boy of South African cricket, suddenly certain people are reading all sorts of sinister motives and reasons into De Villiers’ decision. It’s disgraceful that aspersions are now being cast on the honourable Faf du Plessis and his long-time friendship with De Villiers.

The person crying foul the most has been Fanie de Villiers, but then he has had an axe to grind with South African cricket for some time, and is persona non grata around the Proteas so he doesn’t really know what is going on inside that camp.

Sit down Fanie and follow the wise advice that says: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, rather don’t say anything!”