Ken Borland

It seems a lot of people owe Faf de Klerk an apology. We are all used to seeing the blonde-haired scrumhalf dashing all over the field looking more like a loose cannon than a guided missile at times, but you have to hand it to the 29-year-old for knowing the laws of the game better than most.

And that includes Matthew Carley, the referee for last weekend’s match between the Wallabies and the Springboks who gave De Klerk a yellow card for playing the halfback from an offsides position at a ruck inside the South African 22. Incorrectly as it turns out.

That’s according to no less of an authority than Nigel Owens, the man who has refereed more Tests than anyone else. On this week’s Whistle Watch video for WorldRugby (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsmXBuDGEps), Owens said because De Klerk was bound in the ruck, on his feet and did not attempt to slap the ball out of opposite number Nic White’s hands but just played his arm, he was onsides and should not have been deemed to have done anything illegal.

“My yellow card was disappointing and it put the team under pressure, but I honestly don’t think it was a yellow card. I clearly played the arm and not the ball, which to my understanding is fine and I would do the same thing again. The same with Willie le Roux’s yellow card, he was trying to intercept the pass, it’s not as if we were doing anything stupid.

“I think our discipline has actually been pretty decent, there have just been a few errors when we have gone off-system. We just need to be a bit more sharp and in the referee’s head a bit more. We know we can’t concede a lot of penalties against the All Blacks or we will really struggle. But the last five times we have played against New Zealand they have been close games,” De Klerk said.

Returning to recent history in the 100^th Test between the two great rivals is perhaps the first thing the Springboks need to do in Townsville on Saturday because De Klerk feels they moved away from the strategies that made them the No.1 side in the world in the two successive losses to Australia.

“Maybe we strayed a little away from how we normally play and that led to errors. We were forcing things a bit and our game-drivers tried to play when it was not on. We fell into the trap of maybe overplaying too much, which puts our forwards under strain. We know we need to be better at that.

“As a team, our main focus is on just getting back on track and hopefully stay in contention to win the Rugby Championship. But we know how to play against the All Blacks and how to capitalise on their weak points. In our last game, at the World Cup, it was basically two kicks that we did not handle, which gave them turnover attack and they scored, that’s when they flourish,” De Klerk said. 

A lot of sand has disappeared down the hourglass and a ton of hard work has been put in since South Africa’s last away Test series triumph, but Keshav Maharaj was again at the centre of the success as his hat-trick and five-wicket haul bowled the Proteas to a 158-run win and a 2-0 series result against the West Indies at St Lucia on Monday.

South Africa last won an away Test series against New Zealand in March 2017, with Maharaj the man of the match for his six for 40 in the second innings of the only Test they won, in Wellington. The left-arm spinner was the hero again on Monday as he claimed only the second hat-trick for South Africa in Test history.

Maharaj struck in the penultimate over before lunch, dismissing Kieran Powell (51), Jason Holder (0) and Joshua de Silva (0) with successive deliveries as Anrich Nortje, Keegan Petersen and Wiaan Mulder took catches of increasing difficulty as the West Indies collapsed from 90 for two to 107 for six. Chasing 324, they were eventually all out for 165 with Maharaj finishing with five for 36 in 17.3 overs and Kagiso Rabada taking three for 44.

Opener Powell looked in the mood to stick around, but then suddenly decided to tee-up Maharaj and slog-swept him straight to Nortje at deep midwicket. The tall Holder then inside-edged his first ball on to his pad from where it rebounded quickly to short-leg, Petersen taking a sharp catch quite high to his left.

The hat-trick ball saw Mulder snatch a marvellous one-handed grab at leg-slip, diving to his right, as Da Silva tickled Maharaj around the corner.

South Africa’s only other Test hat-trick came in 1960 when fast bowler Geoff Griffin performed the feat against England at Lord’s.

“There were so many thoughts going through my head before the third wicket as to what delivery to bowl, and in the end it just drifted down leg, it could have been a much better ball. But credit to Wiaan for an amazing catch, whatever he wants to eat or drink tonight is probably on me. I didn’t realise our last away series win was as far back as 2017, so this feels really good.

“As a team we want to move in a different direction and this was the first obstacle, so it’s really good to get over it. We want to be the polished article and to keep being ruthless is really important for this team. Fair play too to our fast bowlers, who were superb. They just don’t give the batsmen an inch, so they tried to score off me and I reaped the rewards,” Maharaj said.

Springbok great Victor Matfield knows better than most that Jake White is a coach who demands a lot from his players, but South Africa’s most-capped player says the fruits of his approach can be seen in the Bulls’ triumph in lifting the Super Rugby Unlocked trophy at the weekend.

Matfield ended with a record 127 Test caps to his name, but it was during White’s tenure as coach from 2004 to 2007 that the Polokwane-born player became a kingpin for the Springboks and the best lineout forward in the world, culminating in him being the player of the final in the 2007 World Cup win.

“Jake White has never been happy with average and you can see that he is demanding a lot from the Bulls players, but it’s getting the best from them, the standards are lifting at Loftus. A lot of us former players thought that the Bulls needed change and then Jake came in and brought quite a bit of change. It’s a pity that there was no real Super Rugby this year because that’s the real test, but they did very well,” Matfield told The Citizen.

While brute physical strength once again seems hip in South African rugby and the Bulls’ pack was certainly the most physical in the competition, Matfield said the team’s success went well beyond simple forward-based rugby. When the ball did get to the backs, it pinged around in impressively incisive fashion.

“When the Bulls were physically up for it, like in the games against the Sharks and Stormers, then they were just ruthless. They had a very strong tight five and their loose forwards were great at the breakdown – in fact nobody in South Africa could compete with them at the breakdown. And then they had a No.9 [Ivan van Zyl] and No.10 [Morne Steyn] who controlled the game very well.

“I must admit before the season I was worried about their centre combination and I was very surprised by Cornal Hendricks at inside centre, he was outstanding, especially against the Stormers. David Kriel also did really well at fullback and the wings played well too,” Matfield said.

New Presidents Cup Internationals team captain Trevor Immelman is keen to build on the foundation laid by Ernie Els and has warned that his side will have a lot of exciting youngsters providing great depth as they look to end the eight-match winning streak of the United States.

Els led the Internationals to one of their best ever showings in December as they were edged out 16-14 at Royal Melbourne Golf Club by the Americans, captained by Tiger Woods. Immelman is the youngest ever captain to be appointed – he will be 41 when the Presidents Cup is played again in September 2021 at Quail Hollow, beating the mark set by Woods, who was coming to the end of his 44th year in December.

And Immelman is banking on an injection of youth to make the International team even more competitive next year.

“I was part of Ernie’s team for the last Presidents Cup and I will try and continue his legacy and I really look forward to building on the platform he created. It’s an amazing honour to follow in the footsteps of Ernie Els and Gary Player as the Internationals captain. They have both been mentors and great friends of mine, whose advice I have relied on through my life.

“In the last two years we’ve had a number of youngsters step up as some of the best golfers in the world. We have a lot of different players starting to play really well, guys who were on the fringes of the team last time around. We had a group of 12 in Melbourne and now I can cast a bigger net and create a group of 30 to 40 golfers, and start to get the camaraderie going,” Immelman told OFM radio’s Morgan Piek this week.

The 2008 Masters (again beating Woods) and two-time SA Open champion mentioned players such as Koreans Sungjae Im and Byeong Hun-An, Cameron Smith, Jazz Janewattananond, Pebble Beach winner Nick Taylor and Corey Conners as being amongst the young talent that is making him excited about being the seventh Internationals captain.

Not that the Cape Town-born Immelman is discounting a healthy contingent of his countrymen making the cut in 2021.

“There are the more experienced guys I grew up with like Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen, but South Africa has such a rich history of golfers performing at the highest level and winning the biggest championships – guys like Charl Schwartzel, who is coming back from injury and showing good form, and Branden Grace, who won the SA Open recently.

“Plus there’s someone like Erik van Rooyen, who has been playing some beautiful golf on the PGA Tour, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who is competing against the best in the world and showing what he can do,” Immelman said.