Ken Borland

Sharks hooker Chiliboy Ralepelle’s return to rugby has not been greeted with universal acclaim following his two-year ban for doping, but those who are unwilling to forgive the former Toulouse player should perhaps consider the case of high-riding Lions coach Johan Ackermann.

The former Springbok lock is just about the most popular figure in South African rugby at the moment because of the inspirational job he has done in taking the Lions from the wilderness three years ago and into this weekend’s SuperRugby playoffs, but he too was banned for two years in 1997 for nandrolone use.

Ackermann then made his return to the playing field and even returned to Test rugby in 2001. He made a second comeback in 2006, becoming the oldest player to represent the Springboks at 37 years and 34 days against Australia in July 2007 in Sydney. That record was subsequently broken last year by former Toulon star Victor Matfield, when he captained South Africa to the bronze medal in the World Cup playoff against Argentina aged 38 years and 172 days.

Interestingly, Ackermann and Ralepelle actually appeared in a Test together, back in November 2006 when the Springboks beat England 25-14 at Twickenham. Ackermann started in the number four jersey, while Ralepelle came off the bench to replace captain John Smit.

Those were the days when Ralepelle was a 20-year-old prospect, who was fast-tracked due to political pressure to include more Black African players in the Springbok team, a dozen years after Apartheid had ended. The next week, Ralepelle was named to captain the team against a World XV in Leicester, becoming not only the youngest player to captain the national team but also the first Black. Those of a more cynical disposition were sure coach Jake White, now with Montpellier, was making a statement aimed at the politicians more than anything else.

Ralepelle is not quite 30, so who knows what lies further down the road for him; perhaps he too could make an international comeback. But he is not keen to speak about the past and his indiscretion with drostanolone, an anabolic steroid popular with bodybuilders.

“I’m living a new chapter now, in a new environment. I’m excited and it’s just fantastic to be back playing rugby. I want to seize the opportunity to play the game I love,” Ralepelle told Midi Olympique this week.

Apart from the feeling that he was a political pawn, fast-tracked for reasons of window-dressing, Ralepelle has also had rotten luck with knee injuries.

One game into the 2007 SuperRugby season with the Bulls, he suffered a serious knee injury, which he injured again in the warm-ups for the 2008 campaign. He suffered further knee injuries in 2012 and in 2014 after just 16 matches for Toulouse.

Both the Bulls, based in Pretoria on the South African Highveld, and Toulouse are inland teams and, having served his ban, Ralepelle is now happy down on the coast in Durban, on the Indian Ocean.

“Durban is a lovely city, it has the best weather you could ask for, I can go to the beach any time I like!

“I had wonderful days in Pretoria, it’s where I grew up and first made my mark, and I also had a great time in France. I made great friends there, it’s a good environment and Toulouse is a great team, the home of rugby in France. It was a great opportunity and a great place to play, and I miss the culture and values of that team,” Ralepelle said.

But the Sharks have given Ralepelle a lifeline when perhaps nobody else would, thanks to Smit, who was the CEO when the hooker was signed last November, and director of rugby Gary Gold. It is not the first time the 2007 World Cup winning captain has aided Ralepelle.

Smit contributed some of the school fees to enable Ralepelle to study at Pretoria Boys’ High, which he himself attended.

Ralepelle is determined to be the author of his own success now and has clearly been working hard off the field, given the lean and mean physique he has been sporting during SuperRugby this season.

“It’s been great to get a few games under the belt and I can still improve, which is exciting. Every day I’m striving just to be more on top of my game. It’s a matter of time and it gets easier playing week in, week out. I’m not yet where I should be, but in the mean time I just want to give more and more of a contribution to the team.

“It’s important that I don’t put my body under pressure, so I worked hard before the season just to keep up with the pace of SuperRugby. I worked hard on my conditioning and I am a little lighter, which helps me to move around the park more. I can have an impact that way, it’s not just about strength because if you’re blowing after five or 10 minutes you’re not going to have much strength anyway,” Ralepelle said.

While French rugby still involves plenty of driving play and is extremely physical, SuperRugby is changing, according to Ralepelle, who returned to the Southern Hemisphere competition in April after three years away.

“There’s been a big change, mostly because of the laws. With the speed of the game, players really need to be fitter and stronger. It’s an amazing competition,” Ralepelle said.

How fortunes change in rugby is also amazing and, if Ralepelle, who remains both mobile and good in the loose as well as proficient in the set-pieces, needs any encouragement, he only needs to look at how Johan Ackermann has not only restored his reputation but has grown it exponentially.

I know Johan Ackermann is now coming in for criticism for resting his first-choice players for the game against the Jaguares in Argentina, which saw the Lions lose first place on the log, but I actually think he’s been quite clever and it’s not a bad thing that they finished second.

I know people talk about momentum being crucial going into the knockouts, but sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. In 2007 the Bulls had to win by a huge margin in the last league game and we did it [beating the Reds 92-3] against an Eddie Jones coached team because we wanted to stay in South Africa, we really didn’t want to travel. But in 2010 we played a weaker team against the Stormers in Cape Town and lost, but the next week at Orlando Stadium we beat the Crusaders in the semi-finals and then beat the Stormers again in the final.

The big thing is Ackers has been able to rest his top guys, they’ll be able to have a full week’s training, without any niggles and physically or mentally there won’t be any fatigue. They’ll have a great mindset going into the playoffs.

If they had all gone to Argentina then they would have been back at the hotel after playing around midnight and then woken up at 4.30am for a four-hour flight to Sao Paulo, where you have to wait to fly out again. So they’d only be back in South Africa on Monday morning and they wouldn’t have been able to train or start their preparation until Tuesday.

Instead Ackers has a fresh team, which is a real positive, and there are no injuries.

Looking at the SuperRugby games last weekend in New Zealand, they were like the South African derbies of old in terms of their intensity and collisions.

I say of old because the Lions have been so dominant in the last 18 months, they’ve been winning derbies well by 50 points. Everyone – including here in Japan – has been watching the New Zealand teams with envy because of the intensity and pace with which they’re playing, the skill set is just so high.

But why are the Lions so good?

Because they play with a lot of width, they have game-breaking centres and wings, they really challenge the defensive line – 71 tries is quite a record, they never give up, they have a strong set-piece and an exceptional scrum.

You have to give credit to Ackers for bringing through guys like Malcolm Marx and Rohan Janse van Rensburg this year. It may have been a bit early for the Lions players last year, their roll of dominance in South Africa really started at the end of SuperRugby,  players like Elton Jantjies, Faf de Klerk, Lionel Mapoe and Jaco Kriel now have experience and belief to win playoff games, which began with the unbeaten run in the Currie Cup.

There’s such a belief in the side, they have a tremendous record against South African sides over the last 18 months.

They also have a fantastic back row, Jaco Kriel is a real warrior and leader, and he makes sure the standards are kept, Tecklenburg works all day long and Whiteley, if fit, always puts in an honest shift and sets a real example for his team.

But in knockout games it’s the halfbacks that make the real difference.

Everyone is starting from zero and you have to control the game a bit more tactically. All the great SuperRugby teams had exceptional halfbacks – the Crusaders had Andy Ellis and Dan Carter, at the Bulls we had Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn or Derick Hougaard. You’re not going to win playoff games without great halfbacks, the Highlanders have got Lima Sopoaga and Aaron Smith and the Hurricanes have TJ Perenara and Beauden Barrett. You have to dictate the pace of the game and territory, and those guys can all do that.

So that’s going to be the challenge for Elton and Faf, they’ll have to step up tactically especially in the kicking game, which they didn’t really do in the June internationals. There wasn’t enough distance to their kicks against Ireland, so the Springboks were always under pressure. It’s how you relieve pressure that is so important in the SuperRugby playoffs or in Test rugby.

But I think the Lions will beat the Crusaders, who won’t have Nemani Nadolo or Andy Ellis. Their flyhalf, Richie Mo’unga, is in his first season of SuperRugby and they’ll be playing their second-choice scrumhalf. They lost the territory battle against the Hurricanes, they couldn’t exit and the Hurricanes just put penalties to touch and kept them in their own half defending. The Crusaders had no field position and could not dictate territory.

The Sharks though are facing an altogether different battle against the Hurricanes in Wellington, with no Pat Lambie. Stefan Ungerer and Garth April will find it really hard to relieve the pressure and dictate the territory game, and the Sharks were very unconvincing against the Sunwolves.

The one positive though for the Sharks is that they beat the Hurricanes earlier in the season, they were able to outmuscle them, pile on the pressure, use their maul, win turnovers and scored a great intercept try and they took their points. It was a really good defensive effort, but the Sharks haven’t been that convincing since the break and they were monstered in the scrum in the Lions game.

It’s a hard ask for them, but travelling on Tuesday won’t be so bad, at the Bulls we used to do it and at the Boks last year we arrived in Argentina on a Wednesday. The players just sleep on the flight over and stay on their normal body clocks and it means they can get a lot more quality training at home.

I think the Brumbies v Highlanders quarterfinal will be much closer than people think, but I think the Highlanders will scrape through. The wings will make the difference because there’s no Henry Speight nor Joe Tomane for the Brumbies, their forwards just haven’t been firing recently – especially the lineout maul without Pocock – and the Highlanders’ kicking game is very good. Ben Smith is in the form of his life and the Highlanders forwards always give a great platform and work behind this kicking game.

As far as the Stormers go, I think it will be harder for the Chiefs in Cape Town than a lot of people think. They won’t have Liam Messam and the Stormers’ set-piece is always strong, plus they’ll have a fresh Frans Malherbe and Vincent Koch available. The Stormers also have the best defence in the competition.

The Stormers are in a good space, they’ve been putting sides away and there’s been a definite pick-up in intensity with Schalk Burger as captain. The players respond to him, he’s so calm but he always gives 100%, there’s just an aura about him that says “follow me”.

The Stormers have been in better form since he took over the captaincy, they had really good wins over the Rebels and Force. I think with their set-piece and the passionate Cape Town crowd, the Stormers should be too much for the Chiefs, who have too many injuries especially in the backs.

John McFarland is the assistant coach of the Kubota Spears in Japan and was the Springbok defence coach from 2012-15, having won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls. In all, he won 28 trophies during his 12 years at Loftus Versfeld.

Xerox Golden Lions coach Johan Ackermann described the 36-26 defeat his team suffered at the hands of the Vodacom Blue Bulls in the Absa Currie Cup match at Loftus Versfeld as “the most boring game of rugby” he has seen for a long time.

“The first half especially was so poor, we just couldn’t get our game to flow, it was penalty after penalty. The Bulls would just bomb it back, we wouldn’t be able to control the ball so we’d scrum again. It was the most boring game of rugby I’ve seen in a while and it’s not good for the supporters either.

“It was just penalty after penalty, high ball after high ball. A disappointing match with strange decisions,” Ackermann said after the game.

The Bulls totally dominated territory in the first half as they racked up a 19-12 lead at the break. The home side then stretched that to 29-12, but the Lions dominated the final quarter and the introduction of Sevens Springbok Kwagga Smith at eighthman and fullback Andries Coetzee moving to scrumhalf saw them score two tries in five minutes to close the gap to 29-26.

But the impressive comeback was ended in the 79^th minute when the Lions were penalised at scrum time, with the Bulls front row going up, and lock Grant Hattingh scored from the rolling maul set up from the lineout.

Ackermann said the decision by referee Marius van der Westhuizen puzzled him.

“I’d like to know what we did wrong at that last scrum when the score was 29-26, is the referee saying you’re no longer allowed to dominate a scrum?

“I think the referee wasn’t certain what was happening in the scrums, all the props were guilty of not binding properly, but it was one penalty for me, one penalty for you the whole match. It was frustrating because I think we had the scrums under control but still had a few penalties against us. Normally the apology comes on the Monday, but by then it’s too late. Something urgently needs to be done about the scrums,” Ackermann pleaded.

Bulls coach Frans Ludeke, on the other hand, felt the referee had made the right decisions.

“The scrums were a huge battle and there were problems with the binding and hinging of both packs. I thought all the decisions were accurate and both packs got penalised. It depends on how you view the scrums, Johan Ackermann probably feels they had an edge at the scrums and they didn’t get the benefit of that. But I thought we were better than them in all other facets,” Ludeke said.

The Bulls coach said he felt his team were turning the corner after losing three of their first four games.

“It’s a great feeling because we worked hard and the way we reacted because we were under pressure. It brought us together and we backed each other. I felt the gain-line and collisions were better in this match than in any other game and that’s why we got reward.

“The Lions like to counter-attack from broken field, they like to move the ball around from deep, that’s their strength, but our first-time tackling was great and if you can defuse that then you get a lot of energy from that. The hunger to succeed was massive and we’ll take a lot from this,” Ludeke said.

`Ackermann acknowledged that his team did not have the energy of the Bulls.

“We just need to look at ourselves and work out why the levels of intensity  and energy weren’t there. Everything just looked slow in the first half, we didn’t react to the Bulls’ game and back ourselves to play more. There wasn’t enough ball-in-hand, not enough flow.

“We lost patience and suddenly had one-off runners against a hungry, desperate side, which doesn’t help. There was no tempo or speed to our game, they slowed down our ruck ball and the stop-start game suited the Bulls,” Ackermann said.

Xerox Golden Lions coach Johan Ackermann said on Thursday that his team are likely to face a tremendous onslaught from the Vodacom Blue Bulls pack in their Absa Currie Cup Premier Division match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday which is why he has chosen a five-two split between forwards and backs on the bench.

Springbok Sevens cap and former Natal Sharks wing Mark Richards could make his Lions debut off the bench, while centre Howard Mnisi, a recent signing from Griquas, is the only other back on the replacements bench.

Ackermann on Thursday named hooker Armand van der Merwe, prop Jacques van Rooyen, lock Martin Muller, utility forward Willie Britz and loose forward Kwagga Smith as the other five substitutes for Saturday’s local derby.

“The Bulls will obviously bring a big onslaught up front and being able to bring on fresh legs will be in our favour. We’ve got a lot of versatile players in the backs – Andries Coetzee can play scrumhalf and between Mark Richards and Kwagga Smith, because of their time as Sevens Springboks, they can cover from scrumhalf to wing.

“So we’ve been able to choose a specialist lock and Willie Britz covers both lock and flank, so it’s a really good mix. It’s going to be very hard at forward, so we’ve gone with five forwards on the bench to bring fresh legs on. We expect a big physical onslaught, we’re ready for it and if the game becomes loose then Willie can do some damage, he’s shown how he can turn games in the second half,” Ackermann said on Thursday.

The Lions coach said he had also decided to hand the captaincy of the team to Derick Minnie, who returns to the starting line-up at eighthman, because last week’s skipper in the victory over the EP Kings, Lionel Mapoe, is too removed from the action on the wing.

“We saw last week Lionel gets caught out wide and can’t get messages to the referee in time, I explained it to him that he’s too far from the action. That’s why so many captains are up front.

“I rely a lot on the captain to set the tone and Derick has done that before. The one with the armband speaks to the referee and to us [the coaching staff], but I want leadership from the players in general, which is why we have unit leaders for the scrums, lineouts and backs,” Ackermann explained.

Minnie has replaced Britz at eighthman, while the other change sees experienced former Bulls hooker Willie Wepener come into the front row in place of Van der Merwe.

Ackermann said he was pleased to welcome Jaco van der Walt back into the flyhalf position.

“I’m pleased to have Jaco back, we saw a lot of potential in him and it’s good to have him back so we can continue our development of him. He’s a specialist flyhalf so hopefully we’ll have more flow, and he’s kicked well in training.

“There are definitely areas and times when you need to relieve the pressure with a kick and Jaco has a long boot. That’s in our favour and will definitely be a factor if things are not going for us,” Ackermann said.

The other change to the Lions team sees Ruan Combrinck moving from fullback to replace Courtnall Skosan on the wing, with Coetzee moving from flyhalf to fullback.

Team: 15-Andries Coetzee, 14-Lionel Mapoe, 13-Stokkies Hanekom, 12-Alwyn Hollenbach, 11-Ruan Combrinck, 10-Jaco van der Walt, 9-Ross Cronje, 8-Derick Minnie, 7-Warwick Tecklenburg, 6-Jaco Kriel, 5-Franco Mostert, 4-MB Lusaseni, 3-Ruan Dreyer, 2-Willie Wepener, 1-Schalk van der Merwe. Bench – 16-Armand van der Merwe, 17-Jacques van Rooyen, 18-Martin Muller, 19-Willie Britz, 20-Kwagga Smith, 21-Mark Richards, 22-Howard Mnisi.