Ken Borland

The FIH Pro League that will be hosted in Potchefstroom from Tuesday provides the South African men’s team with the ideal avenue of measuring their progress against the top hockey nations in the world, according to national coach Garreth Ewing.

South Africa will come up against India, the Netherlands and Germany, all inside the top-six on the world rankings, in the tournament that runs through to February 21 and features 14 matches, eight of them involving the hosts.

“It’s an amazing opportunity, although it will be incredibly tough,” Ewing told The Citizen. “But we’ve got to play against the very best in the world if we are going to find out what we need to grow as a team.

“You’re never going to play against teams in the top eight of the rankings without them being strong outfits, but teams in the Pro League do mix up their line-ups a bit.

“It’s often used an opportunity to expose new players because it’s considered the beginning of the next Olympic cycle. And that’s the same as what I’m doing. But the top sides will have their usual superstars here as well,” Ewing said.

South Africa’s squad will include three players who have graduated from the ‘pram’ of the SA U21 team into the senior game – Clayton Saker, Connor Beauchamp and Sihle Ngubane.

And the prodigies that are the Cassiem brothers – Dayaan and Mustapha – are both back in the fold.

Unfortunately, South Africa will be without their regular captain, Tim Drummond. Because hockey is strictly speaking an amateur sport in South Africa, many of the players don’t have much leeway when it comes to taking leave from their full-time jobs and the veteran midfielder has had to declare himself unavailable.

Fellow Olympian Keenan Horne takes over the captaincy, with Tuks star Bili Ntuli, a member of the national team since 2015, his deputy.

“There are a few changes, but we have the bulk of the Africa Cup squad that won the title last month,” Ewing said. “And we’re taking a 23-man squad to Potchefstroom because we have quite a few games in a short space of time.

“Leave has been a big issue for some guys, but that’s the nature of the sport in this country. So we are going to experience some serious pressures, but it’s more about the experience of playing really hard matches than the results.

“We’re going to have to pay a lot more attention to defence and tap into the counter-attacking strength we used so well in the Tokyo Olympics.

“We need to be a lot more comfortable on the ball under pressure, and this tournament is an invaluable opportunity to get experience of that,” Ewing said.

You will not find a more determined person than new Proteas limited-overs captain Temba Bavuma, whose history of overcoming challenges has shaped his character and makes him the ideal choice to inspire the national cricket team to rise above their own testing circumstances at the moment.

Watching Bavuma lead his troops, ultimately to a 2-1 series defeat against Pakistan in the ODI matches that were his first appointment, determination oozes from every inch of that 5’3 frame. Leadership comes naturally to the 30-year-old and even in the most trying times of that series, Bavuma remained calm and seemed in control.

Such composure is indicative of the many testing times Bavuma has had to come through to become captain of his country.

Like most South African youngsters, as soon as Bavuma could walk, he was outside in the sun playing sport. But his arenas were not verdant lawns or spacious parks as many of his Proteas team-mates would have enjoyed, but rather the run-down streets of Langa, the Cape Town township whose name means “sun” in Xhosa. It was named after the folk hero, Chief Langalibalele, one of the earliest prisoners on Robben Island because he defied the British rulers in Natal.

Bavuma’s family were passionate about cricket and, whether it was his uncles, grandmother or parents, he had plenty of people willing to throw him balls after he first picked up a bat. His real mettle was shown though when he graduated to joining the other youngsters playing street cricket.

The small boy soon caught the eye as he took on teenagers much older than him and who were disinclined to show him any mercy on the shabby, potholed roads of Langa in the late 1990s. Thus was born one of the best techniques in the country, as well as the courage and determination that are Bavuma’s hallmarks.

His parents then showed bravery of their own as they made enormous financial sacrifices so that Bavuma, whose talent was clear, could attend South African College Junior School (SACS) at the foot of Table Mountain.

The talent was polished by the excellent coaching at SACS and, by the time he went to the big city of Johannesburg and enrolled at St David’s Marist in Inanda, he was already considered a player of enough promise to warrant a scholarship.

He spent his holidays playing for Soweto Cricket Club, where he was guided by Geoff Toyana, who would go on to become the first Black African coach to win trophies at franchise level.

“Temba was always small and people would underestimate him. He had to prove himself time and time again for whatever team he played for, but he just has this enormous drive and will to do well. That’s his biggest characteristic, but he has lots of skill as well,” Toyana told Saturday Citizen.

Having played for Gauteng Schools in 2007 and 2008, making the SA Schools team in the latter year, he made his first-class debut for Gauteng, scoring 32 in the second innings, when he was still 18 years old and before he went to study at the University of Johannesburg.

From there his career has followed the well-travelled road to success – dominating at franchise level for the Highveld Lions, becoming a Protea, scoring that memorable Test century at Newlands and now, having been dropped not that long ago, he is captain.

But it is vital that the influence of both the Langa and Soweto cricket clubs are not forgotten in Bavuma’s inspirational tale. He himself requested, upon his appointment as captain, that in the midst of all the celebrations of the first Black African skipper of the Proteas being announced, that people do not forget the journey that brought him to that place.

Bavuma knows the significance of being a symbol and the importance of his legacy, but he also stresses the importance of looking after the same grassroots that he sprang from.

And he also wants to be known as a fine cricketer, who helped the national team win many games, and not just the first Black African captain. Beating the odds and convincing people of how good he is are things Bavuma has done before, and revitalising a team as captain is also something he has done before – with the Highveld Lions.

“Temba was the most successful franchise captain over the last three years, he has a proven record that no-one can dispute. He inherited a strong squad at the Lions but we hadn’t won anything. Under him we won five out of eight possible trophies which you can’t argue with. He created a winning culture very quickly at the Lions,” Nicky van den Bergh, his vie-captain at the franchise, 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.