Ken Borland

While there would have been some joyous relief for the South African team not to have to play powerhouses Netherlands or India, their FIH Hockey Pro League match against France in Potchefstroom on Tuesday night still ended in defeat as they went down 4-1.

While France are ranked just two places above South Africa in 12^th on the world rankings, they are arguably the most improved side in the game in recent years. So the good news for the embattled South Africans is that they matched France in the middle of the field, but it was in the circles where the European side were just way more clinical.

France went 2-0 up in the first 10 minutes through two deflection goals, but South Africa had also looked threatening, no more so when Bili Ntuli’s reverse-sticks shot came off the post after Bradley Sherwood, who was an encouraging addition to the side, robbed a defender of possession.

The hosts then held France scoreless in the second quarter and were creating enough opportunities for them to feel they could yet njotch their first Pro League win.

But France were just too clinical in the second half, making full use of the opportunities they had. In the 41^st minute, they pounced on one loose pass by South Africa, racing down the right of the field before crossing to the middle, where Gaspard Baumgartner finished the move for his second goal.

France went 4-0 up in the 54^th minute through similar ruthlessness on the counter-attack. A quick overhead from a free hit found an attacker on the edge of the circle, he put in the cross, which was missed by an SA defender, allowing Timothee Clement to score.

It was also a feature of the match that France’s defence remained impressively composed and solid, while South Africa’s tended to make costly basic mistakes every now and then.

South Africa did, however, get on the scoreboard with three minutes remaining when the Cassiem brothers, Mustapha and Dayaan, combined superbly for Dayaan to put the chance away. He had hit the crossbar just a minute earlier when Mustapha had also been the provider.

As a professional rugby player, whether the Springbok captain like Siya Kolisi or a 23-year-old still making their way in the game, you are going to have your character tested by the vagaries of the sport.

The shifting fortunes of the teams in the United Rugby Championship have illustrated this perfectly. The Bulls, who had the pressure of expectation on them having dominated the local scene for the last couple of seasons, had to come through the toughest of starts in Europe and are only now inching their way off the bottom of the log.

The Sharks, meanwhile, looked the form South African team last year, culminating in their impressive dismantling of the Bulls in Durban in December. But since then they have been held to a draw and then beaten by the Stormers, who have now overtaken them at the top of the local shield competition.

And now the Bulls and the Sharks will clash in Pretoria on Saturday, a key local derby which Bulls coach Jake White described as being like a final.

“You’re going to have your character tested at certain times but the Sharks are still a great team,” Ruan Nortje, the highly promising young Bulls lock, said on Monday at Loftus Versfeld.

“They have lots of experience, Springboks all over their team. I’m sure they will be playing good rugby on Saturday and it’s important for us to also be ready.

“I don’t think last weekend’s result will affect the Sharks in any way. I’m sure they will be ready to bounce back.

“We’ll take confidence from the points we’ve gained in the last two games against the Lions, but it was not a perfect performance by us last weekend, we struggled in many aspects. There are lots of areas we need to grow, basic errors cost us,” Nortje said.

The Lions, Stormers and Sharks have all put the Bulls under pressure at scrum time recently and Nortje acknowledged that getting the better of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Thomas du Toit is going to be a major challenge and the Bulls need to improve drastically in that set-piece.

“We’ve been under a bit of pressure at scrum-time lately, we’ve had some injuries. But the work coaches Russell Winter and Werner Kruger are putting in will help a lot in the long-term.

“It’s been better the last couple of weeks, but we are not where we want to be yet. We’re up against an all-Springbok front row – what a challenge for us!

“We will just focus on our processes and it will be great to test ourselves against a quality side like the Sharks. Last time we struggled against them in the scrums, which gave them a lot of opportunities to get into our 22 and convert that into points.

“So a massive step-up is needed by us at the scrums, and also at the breakdown, where we struggled as well,” Nortje said.

For most observers, the Sharks rugby squad would seem to already have a special team environment going, representing the demographics of the country and, at the same time, leading the pack in terms of performance on the field and in the boardroom. But Springbok captain Siya Kolisi is confident that their culture is still budding, the best is yet to come.

Kolisi joined the Sharks a year ago amidst much fanfare and, even if his international commitments have meant he has not played as many matches for them as he would have liked, he has clearly settled in well and is contributing in a big way.

As the man who has driven so much of the highly-successful new Springbok team culture, Kolisi is ideally placed to comment on how the Sharks are building a new environment as well.

“Every sporting culture has a past that you have to take into account,” Kolisi said at Kings Park during a media weekend. “We’re still working towards something brilliant here.

“You have to acknowledge the past, you can’t change it but you need to learn from it. You need to have the conversations and understand what gets people going.

“Like with Eben Etzebeth, who was my first White friend. I love him as a person and we love each other’s families. So we have braais together but on some days we’ll go to the Chesa Nyama.

“It’s about being comfortable in your environment, but sometimes what is important to one person is not so much to the other. It doesn’t mean you can’t stand up for what you believe in,” Kolisi said.

Kolisi’s Springbok team-mate Lukhanyo Am is the Sharks captain and, as one of the most likeable and talented players around, he has had a key role in growing a successful culture at Kings Park.

“When you’re driving a culture, having a good environment off the field is nice too. We want to maintain high standards on and off the field.

“We try to keep the environment pure, not just me but everyone. Fortunately we have managed to get it right and keep the standards high,” Am said.

And then six months ago came the dreadful civil unrest in Durban that had the areas around Kings Park cowering behind barbed wire, using civilian patrols to protect themselves against the waves of looting and destruction. It was surely the greatest test of the Sharks’ culture.

“Last year was worse than the craziest scene you’d see in a movie,” Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee said of the rioting. “It was such a test of our culture and we stood together.

“We’re trying to grow an inclusive culture here, both in terms of lifestyle and our community, and we’ve managed to grow in uncomfortable spaces, like Black Lives Matter.

“There’s not going to be any conflict if you talk about an issue like that, but there’s guaranteed to be conflict if you don’t talk.

“I don’t think we have our team culture dead right yet, it’s a thing that lives and evolves. A player could come into the culture tomorrow and not use the right language or not be accepted, and then we won’t get the performance side right,” Coetzee said.

It may have just been written in the stars or it may have been because the Bulls were forced to use the away changeroom at Loftus Versfeld, but Jake White was almost resigned to the inevitability after he suffered his first defeat as the home coach at the famous fortress at the weekend as they were beaten 30-26 by the Stormers in their United Rugby Championship derby.

The Bulls started poorly, trailing 0-18 after half-an-hour, but then stormed into a 26-18 lead with 12 minutes remaining. Only to let the game slip as the Stormers scored two brilliant late tries.

“They are refurbishing our changeroom so we had to use the away changeroom, and the team in that room doesn’t usually win here,” White quipped after the defeat. “But it’s my first loss at Loftus Versfeld and it’s not great.

“I was hoping the crowd would be a catalyst, they were making such a noise that we could hear them on the field. It’s disappointing we did not do them justice.

“But to sum the game up – we found a way to lose. We didn’t show enough composure, which previously we’ve been really good at. After the fightback and then taking the lead, we conceded silly penalties which was disappointing.

“Usually we find ways to win, we squeeze and squeeze and generally then put the opposition away. But today there were just lapses of concentration. We were never going to win every game at Loftus Versfeld,” White said with more seriousness.

With the Bulls, considered the dominant force in South African rugby after winning successive Currie Cups and the Rainbow Cup, languishing second-from-bottom on the URC log, perhaps that is why their players performed with an air of frantic desperation at times. The Stormers were presented with plenty of turnover opportunities and were in clinical mood, taking their chances with aplomb.

“Despite losing our tighthead prop [Mornay Smith] to his first carry of the game and Deon Fourie being very good on the ground, we still created opportunities to get around them and scored four tries.

“But then we also knocked-on a metre from their line or gave away penalties there. We gave them a couple of 22-entries and they scored twice. We were a bit hasty at times when we had them on the ropes.

“But after being 18-0 down, to score 26 points from there shows we’ve got to have something as a team. I’m very proud of the comeback and we must just find a way to learn from the defeat.

“So we will dust ourselves off and go back to work on Monday. The only way to get things right is to work hard. Credit to the Stormers for sticking to it for 80 minutes and scoring a couple of long-range tries,” White said.