Ken Borland

Sbu Nkosi was born in Barberton 26 years ago and will now wear a Barberton Daisy on his rugby jersey, saying on Thursday that he believes a move to the Bulls is just the fresh start he needs to return to being the top-class wing who helped win the 2019 World Cup.

Nkosi famously filled in for an injured Cheslin Kolbe in the World Cup semi-final against Wales, but then did not play in the Tests against the British and Irish Lions last year and has endured a rotten run of injuries and illness this year. Given his limited playing time for the Sharks, it is unlikely that Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber still sees him as being in the top three wings for the national team.

“Injuries happen but it’s a chance for me to completely reset and build afresh, being here is a massive chance to be part of a good thing going on in Pretoria,” Nkosi said at Loftus Versfeld on Thursday.

“I am very grateful to the Sharks, they are the reason my career has gone the way it has, they developed me and taught me to be a man. But moving to the Bulls is the best decision for me.

“I felt like a new chapter needed to be opened so I can get my career back to the Sbu Nkosi everyone knows. It doesn’t matter what union you play for when it comes to making the World Cup squad.

“That is judged purely on performance and I need to be fit and ready to play to even start thinking about being in the reckoning for selection,” Nkosi, who arrived on crutches following ankle surgery but was sporting an extremely smart navy blue jacket with a pocket square in the light blue colour of his new team, said.

Nkosi was headhunted by Bulls director of rugby Jake White to replace Madosh Tambwe, who is heading to Bordeaux Begles, the pair having first met while the wing was at Jeppe High School. Nkosi said he was honoured to be coming to such a proud union and was determined to do the business on the field.

“Jake and I have a relationship that dates back to high school and he actually signed me to the Sharks straight from school. We agree on certain values, which was a big motivating factor to come here.

“In a way I’ve come full circle and I want to be part of Jake’s work, dig into his mind a bit. The general mix in the Bulls’ style of play is extremely exciting, they are getting it right.

“It’s always nice to be at a place with a full trophy room and the Bulls have a legendary legacy. I understand the history and that rugby is like the fourth meal of the day here in Pretoria!

“I feel very privileged to be picked out by a coach like Jake and I’m looking to improve my decision-making, which is a very crucial part of the game. Keeping a cool head at the right time is what separates players. Understanding the game is way more important than a sidestep,” Nkosi said.

Elton Jantjies gets a welcome opportunity in the No.10 jersey for the Springboks against Argentina at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday and the 31-year-old sees himself as not only an experienced head in the team but also a facilitator for those around him.

Jantjies will be the Springboks’ starting flyhalf for the first time since the World Cup match against Canada in October 2019 but, largely due to the pivotal role he played in the rise of the Lions franchise, he has been one of the leaders in the squad for a couple of years. After the trench warfare of the series against the British and Irish Lions, Jantjies also has the vision and skills to unlock the attacking capabilities of the Springboks if the match against Argentina does open up a bit.

“For me, it’s all about the team, especially at this stage of my career. When you are younger you have more of an individual focus, but when you are older, more experienced, your efforts are focused more towards the team. I like to get to know the players around me personally, finding out what they like and what they don’t like.

“You try and find something in common with the way they play and then as flyhalf you give them what they want. Continuity is also very important and we need to get our feet back on the ground as quickly as possible after what was a big win for us over the Lions. We need to keep growing as a group and get the new guys into the Springbok system as quickly as possible,” Jantjies said.

The owner of 38 Test caps stressed that the Springboks see Argentina as very tough opponents. Jantjies remembers well the last time they played the Pumas on South African soil: back in August 2019, the score was locked at 18-18 going into the last 10 minutes at Loftus Versfeld. Jantjies was the breaker of Argentinian hearts that day with his two late penalties taking the Springboks to a 24-18 win.

“Argentina will definitely be confident because they have had a few good results in the Rugby Championship. They always bring emotion and the last time we played them, in 2019 before the World Cup, it took us the full 80 minutes to beat them in South Africa. They will take positives from that. But we’ve also grown since then as a team.

“We have refocused after the Lions series and we know the first two games in the Rugby Championship are very important for us to remain champions,” Jantjies said.

Jasper Wiese will now be the man the Springboks turn to to wear the No.8 jersey and try and make up for the much-mourned absence of Duane Vermeulen, while the much-criticised replacement of prop Ox Nche for the second half of the first Test against the British and Irish Lions has now officially been confirmed as being due to injury.

Nche, who held his own against highly-rated Lions tighthead Tadhg Furlong and was typically impactful in open play, will sadly miss the second Test on Saturday due to a neck injury he picked up towards the end of the first half. It has forced a rejigging of the Springboks’ front-row plans, with Steven Kitshoff and Frans Malherbe now the starting props. Trevor Nyakane, who also did well last weekend, will now cover loosehead from the bench, with Vincent Koch brought in as the tighthead reserve.

But scrummaging was not the Springboks’ major issue in the first Test defeat. In the second half they were exposed in the aerial battle and there was little explosive gainline work either. Wiese, who has been a superb offensive ball-carrier for Leicester Tigers, will hopefully be able to bring some improvement in both problem areas.

“Jasper has been part of our plans and he could form a nice combination with Kwagga Smith coming off the bench too and able to play to his strengths. His main role will be the same as Kwagga’s last week – to get and stop momentum and he was Player 24 last weekend. He’ll have another week of preparation now to get used to how we do things.

“He did very well in the Premiership, his carries were so dominant. Tactically I was probably not sharp enough last weekend to protect Kwagga on the high balls, he was hung out to dry a bit. So we have changed things around there and we want to see from Jasper what got him into the squad. We just needed to improve on how we handled the contestable kicks in the second half,” Nienaber said at the team announcement on Monday.

Smith and Marco van Staden both coming off the bench are certainly two high-energy players and the Springboks have returned to the 6/2 split on the replacements bench they used so successfully in winning the World Cup. That makes Damian Willemse the key backline substitute, fulfilling the role of the veteran Francois Steyn in Japan in 2019.

“Damian has participated in all of the warm-up games and has had time at 12, 15 and 10, similar to what Frans Steyn gave us. He’s versatile and we’ve introduced him into the various roles. We’re comfortable that he can slot into all three of centre, fullback and flyhalf. We’re comfortable the backs can now all handle a full 80 minutes, after a couple of guys had been in isolation for 10 days before the first Test.

“We knew it was going to be tough last week, which is why we didn’t go for the 6/2 split, guys had just not been exposed enough to training, someone like Handre Pollard started cramping. Now they have all been exposed to high-intensity rugby, they are topped up and the muscle memory will still be there having dropped off after isolation,” Nienaber said.

Springbok team: Willie le Roux, Cheslin Kolbe, Lukhanyo Am, Damian de Allende, Makazole Mapimpi, Handré Pollard (vice-captain), Faf de Klerk, Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (captain), Franco Mostert, Eben Etzebeth, Frans Malherbe, Bongi Mbonambi, Steven Kitshoff. Bench – Malcolm Marx, Trevor Nyakane, Vincent Koch, Lood de Jager, Marco van Staden, Kwagga Smith, Herschel Jantjies, Damian Willemse.

Probably only the most ardent of South African rugby fans will know the name Dugald Macdonald, but he is Springbok number 470 having first slipped the famous Green and Gold jersey over his head in a third-floor room of the President Hotel in Sea Point, on 7 June 1974, while a typical Cape Town cold front splattered rain on to the balcony outside.

Macdonald would wear the jersey that had captured his imagination only once in a Test match, and that was actually a fortnight later when he played in the second Test against the British Lions at Loftus Versfeld. That’s because he was a reserve for the first Test at Newlands, and in those days the replacements sat in the stadium because the ‘bench’ was hardly ever used.

In a disastrous 3-0 series loss for the Springboks, he was destined to become one of the unfortunate one-Test wonders as the national selectors panicked and chose 36 different players for the four Tests, the final match in Johannesburg being drawn. According to veteran rugby writer John Bishop, who covered the entire tour, “Dugald should have been there from start to finish, he was one hell of a player. One of those guys who were simply forgotten about in the chaos of the 1974 tour, a powerful number eight with excellent ball skills. He should have been a Bok great”.

Macdonald has just released a book about the whole experience – the series being one of the most traumatic in South African rugby – called Ja-Nee. It is an engrossing look into the past, a study in how the mentality of Springbok rugby was built and how those attitudes still influence it today, but as with all great writing, it also brings applications and warnings for the future.

And it’s not just about rugby either. It provides a fascinating snapshot of White South African life in the 1970s. It is evocative, humorous and thought-provoking all at the same time.

The sun was shining brightly on that midwinter’s day in Pretoria, but Macdonald makes a decent argument for the Springboks not so much being panicky as arrogant. They were convinced that the Lions could not possibly be better than them and a few changes would sort out their scrum and allow them to dominate possession.

It’s a recurring story in our rugby: Back in 1992 when we returned from isolation and expected to still be better than Australia and New Zealand because “the Currie Cup is the strongest competition in the world” and instead lost both Tests comfortably. And then just last week the Bulls travelled from Pretoria to Italy, everyone back home confident that they would be returning from their jaunt with the Rainbow Cup, only to be played off the park by Benetton Treviso.

When South African rugby retreats into the laager mentality, we tend to become dangerously insular whenever we have been cut off from international trends.

Macdonald was not your typical Springbok of the 1970s, he was a city boy, schooled in Cape Town, he was an Oxford Blue and also played for Parma in Italy and Toulouse in France. Some might say paranoid 1970s South Africa was never likely to give him many more than one Test cap.

This broader world view has allowed him to identify an over-reliance on physicality as being a possible albatross around the necks of the current world champions, who have not played since outmuscling England in the World Cup final in Japan in November 2019. While the Springboks have been inactive, the rest of the world has been plotting.

“If we understood the roots of South African rugby then we’ll know why physicality has actually been responsible for many of our defeats. I fear we are winding up for another one because physicality is all the Lions are talking about. But if we don’t have technique and lucidity, physicality can only get you so far.

“Whenever we have just played inklim rugby it has been the beginning of the end, it’s been a problem down the years, and the same thing is growing again. Physicality is great at the right time and in the right place, but so much thought needs to go into it otherwise it’s helluva easy to get carried away. Fortunately we have really good leaders in the game now,” Macdonald told me.

*Ja-Nee is published by Flyleaf Publishing and is widely available in bookstores and online.