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Ken Borland



Integral Nyakane looks forward to return of Marcel 0

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Ken

Springbok tighthead prop Marcel van der Merwe began his professional rugby career at the Free State Cheetahs in 2011 and would play alongside and scrum against a strong but raw loosehead from Limpopo by the name of Trevor Nyakane.

In 2013 Van der Merwe joined the Blue Bulls and made his Super Rugby debut for them the following year. Nyakane followed the Welkom-born, Paarl Boys’ High School educated tighthead to Pretoria, with Van der Merwe then leaving for Toulon in June 2016.

The 29-year-old Van der Merwe will now return to the Bulls after four years in France and he will find Nyakane has not only switched to tighthead prop but become an integral part of both the Bulls and Springbok teams. There will be competition aplenty now for what new Bulls coach Jake White has called the most important position in the team, and Nyakane welcomes it.

Not only because it will push the 31-year-old to even greater heights but it will also help manage his workload. Nyakane had very little respite in last year’s Super Rugby competition, starting every single game, all 17 of them. Eventually all that physical strain adds up and it may have played a role in his unfortunate departure from the 2019 World Cup, after tearing a calf muscle in the second half of the opening game against the All Blacks.

“I played with Marcel at both Free State and the Bulls and I know the type of player he is, so it’s going to be amazing to have him in the squad. We can now look at alternating at tighthead, it’s always great to be able to do that, but you also want to play of course. But it’s really difficult in a full season to play every game,” Nyakane told The Citizen at the One Cup of Pap Feeding Scheme, alongside fellow World Cup winners John Smit and Joel Stransky, who were also helping to hand out food parcels.

White has been quick to make changes at the Bulls and Nyakane said it will be exciting times when the squad finally gets together again after Lockdown. “It’s always exciting having a new coach to change things up a bit and I look forward to meeting up with Jake and everyone else when we go back to Loftus. The coach has obviously been bulking up the squad, which only makes it easier to rotate and manage players, and to have fresh blood coming in will be a positive,” Nyakane said.

Rugby uses its testosterone in the fight against rape 0

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Ken

 

Too much aggression and testosterone are often factors which get the blame for South Africa’s horrific rape statistics, but one brave survivor has teamed up with rugby sides to turn these integral parts of the game into something beneficial for the fight against violent sexual abuse.

The Jes Foord Cup, which is named after the founder of the Jes Foord Foundation, will be played for on Saturday in Durban between the first teams of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Durban Collegians. But the day is about so much more than just two rugby teams slugging it out for some silverware.

The University of KZN Rugby Club and Durban Collegians, in conjunction with the Jes Foord Foundation, have formed the Rugby Against Rape charity and the annual rugby day will see eight men’s teams from both the Durban and Pietermaritzburg campuses and four women’s teams in action as not only money but also tremendous awareness is raised about the scourge of rape.

In an incident which shocked KwaZulu-Natal in March 2008, the then 21-year-old Foord was gang-raped by four men at Shongweni Dam while walking with her father, who was forced to watch the awful assault at gunpoint.

But Foord vowed not to allow the terrible incident to destroy her and decided to speak out, forming the Jes Foord Foundation.

“I formed the foundation to help restore lives after rape by way of a number of initiatives and activities designed to change rape victims into rape survivors. I want to educate people and help them realise that there is life after rape,” Foord says.

Her rapists were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 and since then the Jes Foord Foundation has helped hundreds of rape survivors regain their dignity and self-esteem.

A bunch of young rugger buggers might seem an odd choice of partner for such a charity, but Foord said the varsity students were the ideal fit for her efforts to increase awareness around rape.

“I wanted to activate young adults and what better target than someone big and strong. When I tell the rugby players my story, I see their faces and they are absolutely silent for the whole talk, they want to be involved and they want to know how they can stop rape.

“I tell them that during one rugby match, in the 80 minutes excluding half-time, 282 people are raped. I tell them to play for them and it breaks their hearts that while they are having fun, running around, so many people suffer rape. I tell them to direct their anger towards helping the survivors and not towards the perpetrators,” Foord told The Daily Maverick.

“At this age, many of them are starting to think of settling down with a wife, but if not, it could be their daughters, sisters or mothers who get raped. In any case, it’s always someone’s daughter, sister or mother who is raped.”

Mark Schulze, a University of KZN Rugby Club executive committee member and former scrumhalf, said the players were thrilled to get the opportunity to help such a worthy cause.

“There’s been a very good response and the guys have jumped at the opportunity to help. They are tjoepstil when Jes talks and the fact that rugby is an aggressive sport fits in perfectly with the target market and the message she is trying to get across. Rape is happening to people left and right and there are a lot of vulnerable people on our campuses. She’s removed the taboo around speaking out about rape very successfully,” Schulze said.

Efforts to help rape survivors have often been marred by the shoddy, insensitive treatment they receive immediately after the attack and ensuring they get special care is a focus of the Jes Foord Foundation.

Because their body is literally a crime scene, rape victims are told not to shower or clean themselves by police, which they are understandably desperate to do.

“After my rape, I felt so dirty. But it’s not just that you have dirt or blood on you, it’s a whole new, deeper level of dirty. You have their smell on you, their sweat. You are desperate to scrub it off.

“I received a care package from a local pharmacy with so many special products in it to help feel clean again. And I thought, what about all those survivors who don’t get this, who just have a bar of soap and a bucket of water?” Foord said.

So Foord instituted the Handbag Project which distributes bags that contain an assortment of toiletry items, a scrubbing brush, sanitary towel, clean new underwear, a personal gift and an encouraging note to let a survivor know she is not alone.

Over 2,000 handbags were distributed by the foundation last year and members of the public can help them reach their target of 10,000 this year by donating supplies, handbags or funds to support the project; volunteering for a handbag-packing day; organising a drive for supplies or a volunteer bag-packing day in your area; or volunteering to become a depot for the Handbag Project in your area.

Read more:

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-05-15-rugby-against-rape/#.VhJf-_mqqkp

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  • Thought of the Day

    Ephesians 4:15 – “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

    “When you become a Christian, you start a new life with new values and fresh objectives. You no longer live to please yourself, but to please God. The greatest purpose in your life will be to serve others. The good deeds that you do for others are a practical expression of your faith.

    “You no longer live for your own pleasure. You must be totally obedient to the will of God.” – Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm

    The goal of my life must be to glorify and please the Lord. I need to grow into Christ-likeness!



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