Ken Borland

Life in France is good (although he complained the biltong is not the same as at home) judging by the sparkle in Trevor Nyakane’s eye and his lean and mean look at the Springbok hotel in Pretoria on Thursday.

The former Bulls prop joined Racing 92 at the beginning of the year and will be a useful source of information on next year’s Rugby World Cup hosts. Nyakane picked up an injury towards the end of the French season which prevented him from playing in Racing’s unsuccessful Champions Cup semi-final and Top 14 quarterfinal.

But the 33-year-old was thrilled to be able to watch the charge of the South African teams in the United Rugby Championship.

“Being in France has given me a different perspective on rugby, and I’ll be giving that information to the Springbok team. It’s lovely coming back, I feel at home, you can get biltong over there but it’s not the same!

“I was really amazed watching the URC. At the start of the competition, you had to scroll to the second page of the log to find any of the South African teams, and then we ended up with three teams in the playoffs!

“Racing play Champions Cup rugby against Leinster, so we know what they are capable of and it was really amazing for the Bulls to go there and win. It shows that there are only greener pastures for our teams,” Nyakane said.

The versatile frontranker’s focus is now on the Tests against Wales and he says the never-say-die attitude of Wayne Pivac’s side is their strongest attribute.

“Wales have a lot of experience and they never let go. Some teams you can just beat into submission, but Wales keep coming until the final whistle blows.

“They will try and impose themselves in the game, but as South Africans we are never shy of a challenge,” Nyakane said.

While Thursday’s function was to introduce the new Springbok squad to the media, who coach Jacques Nienaber described as the brokers between the team and the fans/sponsors, who he said were ultimately their employers, it was unsurprising that the players were more excited about the prospect of playing in full stadiums again.

“We’ve really missed the fans, they mean a lot to us,” Nyakane said. “We went through the Lions tour last year without any crowds, it was a good tour but we really missed the guys out there keying us up.

“I would urge all fans to purchase tickets and come out and support us, and I can assure them we will give of our best.”

From dealing with a 10-day quarantine that almost turned their hotel rooms into prison cells, to getting over a humiliating defeat in the first Test, the Proteas showed immense resilience in bouncing back to beat New Zealand by 198 runs in the second Test in Christchurch on Tuesday, allowing them to level the series and ensure the Black Caps have still never won a rubber against South Africa.

Man of the Match Kagiso Rabada, who led the way with the ball with 8/106 in the match and played a vital innings with the bat, said after the impressive triumph that resilience seems to come naturally to the Proteas team.

“It just seems to be our natural character, resilience has always been the word that just seems to fit us best,” Rabada said. “It’s never easy to beat us and we proved it again in this series.

“And to see young guys stepping up like Lutho Sipamla and Kyle Verreynne, and Sarel Erwee in his first series, there are lots of good signs for the future.

“It was no use harping on about how badly we played in the first Test, we recognised that we totally did not rock up and New Zealand were too good for us, but we had to put game-plans in place and react under pressure.

“Mentally we had to come back. We had to wake up, rock up and execute. We were under pressure, so it means a lot not to lose the Test series. We would have liked to have won, but credit to us for bouncing back,” Rabada said.

Although the 26-year-old still occasionally has moments of breast-beating emotion that pour out on the field, he is now a much more calculating, composed bowler. While there can be no doubting his passion, Rabada has developed a cool, ruthless streak.

“As a fast bowler you very seldom feel at your very best, so I just go out and try and implement the basics as well as possible and try to adapt to the conditions as best you can,” Rabada said.

“You’re always overcoming challenges and you just try and create your own luck through hard work, sticking to your process and refining it where necessary. And then you just have to allow it to happen.”

Duane Vermeulen may have enjoyed the facilities of a fancy suite at the hotel at Loftus Park, but it was no place for a family to live and this is believed to be the main reason the Springbok eighthman decided to leave the Bulls after just one year.

Vermeulen, who played a key role in turning around the fortunes of the Bulls, leading them to their first Currie Cup title since 2009 in January, has decided to continue his epic career at Ulster in Northern Ireland. While it is sad news for the Bulls, they do have the consolation of the fantastic environment the Springbok talisman helped build and the knowledge that they have an eighthman star-of-the-future to replace him in Elrigh Louw.

“Duane’s contract with us ended on August 31 and we had plenty of chats about his plans and wanted him for another season. But he has been commuting from Cape Town, staying in the hotel, and that is not ideal when you’re trying to raise a family. His family has been back in Cape Town, he’s 35 years old now and it’s a good deal he’s been offered by Ulster.

“It make sense for Duane and his family to take up that offer. But he adds immense value wherever he goes and the stability we have in our squad now is partly due to him. He has really added to our culture and a winning environment here,” Bulls CEO Edgar Rathbone told Saturday Citizen on Friday.

Vermeulen was in top-class form before he suffered a twisted ankle that required surgery in early June. It meant he missed the series against the British and Irish Lions, a rare gap in his Springbok CV, and he only made a return to the national team, without having his usual influence, last weekend against Australia.

But the fact that the Nelspuit product has signed a two-year contract with Ulster suggests he is looking to still be a part of the Springbok set-up when they go for a second-successive title at the 2023 World Cup in France.

Meanwhile, the Bulls announced their touring squad for the United Rugby Championship that starts next weekend with a visit to Leinster, consistent European powerhouses with a handful of trophies since 2008/9. The Bulls will be taking a half-dozen high-quality loose forwards overseas with them – Arno Botha, Marcell Coetzee, Jacques du Plessis, Muller Uys, Louw and WJ Steenkamp.

Covid-19 is raging around Gauteng, but Siya Kolisi says the Springboks feel safe in their encampment at a Johannesburg hotel/biobubble and they are eager to once again put smiles on the faces of their supporters who are going through so much in their day-to-day lives.

Friday’s Test against Georgia in Pretoria is the Springboks’ first since Kolisi led them to a memorable World Cup triumph in the final against England in Yokohama on November 2, 2019. Since then the coronavirus has infiltrated every aspect of South African life and Kolisi knows his team can give people some respite from the slow vaccination programme, service delivery failures, water and electricity crises, Zuma’s attack on the constitution and the dire economy etcetera etcetera.

“We are being kept informed of what is happening around us and we know the number of Covid infections is climbing, but basically we are just staying at our hotel and just concentrating on our rugby. We are keeping safe and we want to make sure we make the most of the opportunity we have to play. When we play, it feels good for our fans and hopefully we can add to that.

“We want to put smiles on the faces of people, we are privileged and fortunate to be doing what we love to do, so we are going to give it everything and play as hard and for as long as we can. Sometimes we give the people smiles and hope, they are going through a really difficult time and if one or two of them can be lifted then that’s good because we don’t only play for ourselves,” captain Kolisi said on Thursday.

One should not expect the Springbok game to be adorned with fancy jewellery against Georgia, who are a workmanlike side that loves to make rugby a war of attrition. The home side will not want to buckle and they have to do the hard yards first before trying any of the pretty stuff against the world’s 12^th-ranked team.

“We all have to make sure we do our part – ‘know your job, do your job’ – and hopefully we can make a statement. Like a circus act, everyone can hopefully show why they have been picked in the team and we won’t beat Georgia without the unseen Warrior work like cleaning rucks. We need to do the stuff that nobody except the coaches and the team sees.

“For the Springboks to actually get out on to the field is huge for us because we’ve been talking about it since last year, when we thought we would get the opportunity to play. Every team has had to adapt to Covid, but we’re only coming together now, there’s great excitement and it’s awesome that so many players from the World Cup are still with us,” Kolisi said.