Ken Borland

So Rassie Erasmus and SA Rugby have apologised and accepted their punishments from that perfidious body known as WorldRugby, but what will be done about all the officiating errata that has marred the game this year?

Most probably nothing because the northern hemisphere bloc that now enjoys the hegemony at WorldRugby will be too busy power-mongering and money-chasing to pay much notice to the real problems the game is facing. Rugby pundits around the world have been writing about the need to bring clarity and uniformity to the way the game is officiated for more than a decade now, and all WorldRugby seems to do is print new and even more confusing law interpretations.

The sport itself is losing credibility because fans no longer understand the laws or how they are blown. Frustrated, they end up casting aspersions on the integrity of the poor referees. It is a dangerous place for any sport to be when you are alienating your own supporters.

While Erasmus’s hour-long video was perhaps a bit too much like starting a riot for WorldRugby’s authoritarian tastes, a rant was inevitable following British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland being able to get away with questioning the integrity of South African Marius Jonker when he was appointed TMO shortly before the first Test due to Covid restrictions that stopped Brendan Pickerill from travelling from New Zealand.

Predictably, the 50/50 calls went the Lions’ way, but Erasmus was more upset with the poor refereeing of Australian Nic Berry.

But it’s not just Erasmus who has lashed out at officials this year. Wallabies coach Dave Rennie was publicly furious over how his team were treated by the officials on their European tour and rugby fans in South Africa were eagerly awaiting news of what action would be taken against him, especially since Jonker was the target of his rage, even though on a couple of key decisions he was left trying to find compelling evidence to overturn the referee’s on-field decision.

WorldRugby ended up just issuing Rennie a written warning on Friday.

Losing teams are always going to have one or two gripes to complain about, and generally the side that wins would have had a couple of decisions go against them too. But the mathematics of the recent officiating seems to have swung well away from 50/50.

Things are not adding up too often for WorldRugby to continue to turn a blind eye to this crisis.

Speaking about adding up, England conceded 11 second-half penalties against the Springboks last weekend as the pressure mounted on them, but there were no team warnings, no yellow cards. The great Nigel Owens stated in his column in the Telegraph that he felt South Africa were especially unfortunate not to get more reward out of their dominant scrum.

But the Springboks obviously don’t want to dare say anything critical and just add to the bans and fines WorldRugby are launching their way.

We can only hope that as one of their New Year’s Resolutions, WorldRugby can find it in their hearts to sort out the officiating crisis and placate the bee’s nest that has been stirred up this year. Of course referees will err and no-one wants to see them put under undue pressure.

But when the governing body turns a blind eye to accountability across the board, then it puts the high-stakes international game, made even more tense by bubble life, under untenable strain.

Sharks coach Sean Everitt is known for his backing of young players, but he has also ensured the acquisition of some wise old heads to impart their wisdom like a herbal infusion spreading its aromas through Kings Park.

On the playing front, the well-travelled, 32-year-old flyhalf Lionel Cronje was acquired on loan from Toyota Verblitz, and highly-rated former Leinster Academy boss Noel McNamara was appointed as attack and backs coach, with world-renowned defence guru John McFarland also proving to be a big hit in Durban.

“A guy like Noel has a great impact, he’s really vibrant, he has good energy and he works closely with the players. He’s really clear with what is expected and when the Sharks go to the Northern Hemisphere, it’s going to be great to have a guy in the camp who has such insight into the conditions, who has that background. He’s really adding value for the younger guys.

“And John has won five Currie Cups and is very passionate about South African rugby. He’s a really good defence coach and we’ve improved that side of our game over the last couple of weeks. He knows what he wants and I worked with him before in 2012,” Cronje, who played five matches for the Bulls, said.

“And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience of coming back to the Sharks as they develop an exciting new culture. I’m just trying to pass on my experience and add value to the very talented youngsters in the group. The Sharks want to play an exciting and captivating brand of rugby that allows the players to flourish and Sean is a very positive coach.

“I worked with him when I was here before and he wants the players to express themselves. Hopefully we can keep building on that. But it’s been really exciting for me to challenge myself here in the latter part of my career and I’m also trying to add some leadership support. There’s stuff I’ve learnt abroad – we have a lot of New Zealand coaches in Japan,” Cronje, who previously played 23 times for the Sharks in 2014/15, said.

One youngster Cronje mentioned as having a germ of greatness in him is fellow flyhalf Curwin Bosch.

“There is a ton of talent in Curwin, we just need to keep backing him. He’s very aware of the areas of his game he needs to be working on, but he’s a great talent. He’s a phenomenal kicker and he has attacking ability second-to-none. There’s no reason why he should not become a household name at Springbok level. I’ve really enjoyed playing with him.

“Curwin’s only 24, but we are so spoilt for talent in South Africa and the fans are so critical, they expect a certain level of play at 21 years old. But we need to keep trusting his talent to develop and, as a player, it’s nice to get four or five games in a row under the belt, that’s how you get rhythm and start understanding the game-plan,” Cronje said.

It is not known whether Cricket South Africa’s Members Council mourned their earlier delaying tactics and scheming, but on Tuesday, as their deadline to accept the governance changes proposed by the Interim Board passed, they requested another extension from Sports Minister Nathi Mtethwa.

Mthethwa had given the Members Council until 5pm on Tuesday to show cause why he should not take action against CSA following their failure at the weekend to accept a majority independent board and an independent chairperson. From an interview the sports minister gave to a radio station on Tuesday night, it seems the Members Council did respond on Tuesday evening.

It is believed Mthethwa will decide on appropriate action overnight.

But having dragged out negotiations for so long, and then finally tried to negotiate at the last hour, it would be understandable if the Minister were to give them short shrift.

A Members Council statement issued earlier on Tuesday is likely to form the basis of their last-ditch appeal to Mthethwa. In the statement, they said they did not have enough time to study and react to the final draft of the Memorandum of Incorporation. They said the Interim Board only gave them the draft less than a day before the Special General Meeting.

The Members Council were not happy that the issue of Sascoc not allowing the CSA constitution to be amended without their approval has not yet been resolved and that the MoI makes provision for just four non-independent directors and not the five that had allegedly been agreed upon earlier. Some provincial presidents are also not willing to accept an independent chairperson of the board and the Interim Board also being the nominations committee for the independent directors.

But Gauteng and North-West issued a statement on Tuesday distancing themselves from the rest of the Members Council and supporting a majority independent board and an independent chairperson. Their stance is believed to be supported by at least three other provinces and Northerns also look likely to accept the amendments to the constitution.

I’ve always known that a week can be a long time in the world of sport, but I go away for eight nights to the bush of northern Limpopo and return to find rugby’s entire landscape changing with indecent haste compared to the months of feet-dragging that often characterise a game that has been presided over at some stages by dinosaurs or the old farts of the straw-chair brigade.

One of the changes I saw coming before my departure. I always love unintended consequences and it was former Springboks and Bulls defence coach John McFarland who pointed out to me that the rulemakers’ new emphasis on keeping tackles lower, away from the head and shoulders, was at least partly responsible for the sudden rash of offloads we have seen from the South African teams, who have traditionally preferred taking contact and winning some hard-earned, psychologically-meaningful centimetres.

So it’s not just a mindset change amongst our franchise coaches and players, but also that tacklers are now being forced down below the arms, allowing the hands to be free to keep the ball alive.

Time will tell whether that more skilful approach is carried through to the Springboks, but the national team has already had better preparation than last year with a camp and they look better resourced too in terms of coaching staff.

One of those additional resources is Cheetahs coach Franco Smith and it may be just as well that he has earned a promotion because he might be out of a decent Super Rugby job next year. If we believe what the New Zealand media tell us, then the Cheetahs as well as the Southern Kings will be axed from Super Rugby under the new, hopefully improved format for 2018 that is yet to be unveiled.

Harold Verster, the CEO of the Cheetahs, cheerfully told the world though that he keeps his “ear to the ground” and that the rumbling noise he hears is not a rampaging stampede of buffalo at all, but the sound of the Grey College-Free State-somewhere else in the country pipeline running smoothly. He says the Cheetahs are safe.

You cannot be nearly as optimistic about the Kings, however. They would seem to be sitting ducks as not only are they struggling on the field but they are a financial drain on the South African Rugby Union and money always shouts loudest when it comes to administrators, like politicians.

Speaking of politicians, you cannot escape the irony that Cheeky Watson, the self-proclaimed messiah of transformation, has now left Eastern Cape rugby and has done more damage to the nursery of Black rugby in our country than anything since a Nationalist government functionary.

If you called him a blood-sucking tick you would probably be understating his effect. The man has been a full-blown parasite on the game in that vulnerable region, more like the deadly malaria protozoans that kill half-a-million people a year in sub-Saharan Africa.

Later this year, the British and Irish Lions tour New Zealand in what should be the rugby highlight of 2017, but this type of proper tour probably won’t become more common given the news this week that a new global rugby calendar is being introduced. Coming into effect in 2020, it has reducing player workload as one of its main tenets.

Tours by northern hemisphere teams to the southern hemisphere will be pushed back to July, but this will allow Super Rugby to be completed in one fell swoop from February to June. This is a good thing and will come into effect in 2019, because that is a World Cup year.

The 2023 World Cup is another story of course, with South Africa seemingly ranged against France and Ireland for the right to host the tournament. If you can believe what came out of sports minister Fikile Mbalula’s mouth this week, then government is now backing the bid.

Then again, Mbalula might just have been trying to distract from the fiasco that was Durban’s Commonwealth Games bid. The chairman of that bid was Mark Alexander, the president of the South African Rugby Union, but that’s a story for another day.