Ken Borland

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus may be downplaying the importance of winning the inaugural Nations Championship, but filling his team with World Cup winners and first-choice regulars to play England at Ellis Park on Saturday makes it clear how seriously South Africa are taking their opening Test of the year.

With only the injured Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu absent, the backline is probably the one Erasmus would name if it were the World Cup final on Saturday. And up front are all the formidable old names – the now-established first-choice loose trio of captain Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Jasper Wiese; Eben Etzebeth and Ruan Nortje in the second row, and Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx and Thomas du Toit in the front row.

One can probably vigorously debate whether Grant Williams or Cobus Reinach are the number one scrumhalf; but Williams has played 28 Tests already and can no longer be called inexperienced, while Reinach has not played any rugby since his injury on Stormers duty at the end of April.

Du Toit may or may not be South Africa’s best tighthead prop, but English pundits have nothing but praise for him, the 31-year-old having taken the European game  by storm during his three years at Bath. With Wilco Louw fatigued after a tough URC campaign, the Sharks-bound Du Toit gets an early chance to lay down a marker in the Springbok jersey, his mobility for a high-paced game at altitude being a plus.

It is fit and proper that Erasmus and the Springboks are taking England so seriously, in contrast to many South Africans who expect them to be filling their boots against Steve Borthwick’s visitors.

Yes, England struggled in the Six Nations, but let’s not forget that at the start of this year, it was this weekend’s clash at Ellis Park that was creating the most excitement for the early rounds of the new Nations Championship. England had risen to third in the world rankings thanks to their unbeaten run through their Autumn Internationals, including a 33-19 dismantling of the All Blacks, and them versus South Africa seemed to be a match-up between the two most in-form teams on the planet.

The momentum was lost in the Six Nations, until England nearly beat champions France in Paris. They looked back on the up again and showed that they do still have some potent weapons.

“Our mindset is just to win another Test match and I’m pretty sure England are the same. The Barbarians match was a nice warm-up and it helped get the guys into the structure, but this is now a big Test. England are always tough, their strength in numbers is really good, many of their players were in the Premiership final so their standard is very high,” Erasmus warned when announcing his team this week.

“There are not a lot of games against England in our squad and it will be all about how quickly we can get cohesion, alignment and playing together. England should have won their last game against France, they only just lost, and having been here a while, they’ve probably adapted to altitude.

“We’ll have to see how they run the ball, but they have a young and energetic side that fits an open, running game. We’ll have to get the better of them facet by facet of the game, try and win by dominating the different departments of the game.

“This is a big year for us, there are young guys there in our squad but they don’t have a lot of caps and next year is the World Cup. The priority is to keep our momentum and belief, so we’re just trying to win, we won’t be chasing bonus points. If we win all our games, we’ll win the Nations Championship.

“We just want to try and get on the front foot, get momentum, but it’s not going to be easy. Which is why we’ve chosen a more experienced side. If it goes well on Saturday, then we can use more youngsters in the next few weeks,” Erasmus said.

The double World Cup winning coach’s caution is also justified by history: the last Test the Springboks played at Ellis Park was their embarrassing 38-22 defeat to Australia on August 16 last year, while the last time they played England in Johannesburg was on June 16, 2018.

On that occasion, the Springboks won 42-39, recovering from a horror start in which they went 24-3 down. It was just Rassie’s second Test as head coach and Siya Kolisi was the first Black African to lead South Africa in a Test match. The lesson from that game was that momentum can shift very quickly at Ellis Park.

Last year’s defeat to the Wallabies provided another salient lesson and warning – it is easy, given how fast-scoring matches can be at Ellis Park, to get carried away. The Springboks were near-perfect in the opening quarter, leading 22-0 with some scintillating rugby. But then they hit a speed wobble, over-played and Australia were well-deserved winners.

Using Manie Libbok at flyhalf worked marvellously when the Springboks were in charge and on attack, but his game management was exposed when the Wallabies fought their way back into the contest. It seemed on that day that Libbok had only one gear – flat out – and their game eventually spiralled out of control, a bit like what has happened to English cricket with their Bazball.

This Saturday at Ellis Park will be the first Test since then that Erasmus is using Libbok in the No.10 jersey. The injury to Feinberg-Mngomezulu nows gives the former Stormers star the chance to show that the effective job he has done coming off the bench since then can be repeated from the start.

“I have a clear understanding what my role is. I need to go out there and lead with my voice, drive the team around the park and make sure we execute our game plan. I need to do my exits, make sure we are in the right areas and play with the right balance,” Libbok told SuperSport this week.

“It’s especially about looking after the forwards, not wasting their energy and overplaying them. I need to handle the pressure, kick at the right times and get in their territory,” Libbok said, perhaps in reference to the feeling that the Springboks had shot their bolt way too early against the Wallabies last season.

South Africa are going to have to box smart against England and it will require a much more controlled performance from them if their proud record against the Red Rose in Johannesburg is not going to go the same way as their one against Australia went to everyone’s shock last year.

England have not won at Ellis Park since 1972 and anywhere on the Highveld since 2000, while Australia’s previous win at the intimidating venue came in 1963 and they had not triumphed anywhere in South Africa since 2011.

England are a competent side across the board and the Springboks will be looking for a knockout blow via their usual weapons of physical dominance at the gainline and in the set-pieces, with a lethal backline able to both create space and take advantage of what materialises thanks to their mighty forwards.

South African batting star Heinrich Klaasen hopes the impact sub rule used in the Indian Premier League never makes its way into international cricket, saying it negates the need for “smart batting”.

Klaasen steered the Proteas to victory in their opening T20 World Cup match in New York, a meagre target of 78 still requiring the batsmen to be at their sharpest on a treacherous pitch that saw the facilities at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium being criticised for producing a game that lacked entertainment value as the International Cricket Council seeks to reach new markets.

It was all a far cry from the recent IPL, in which strike-rates and totals reached all-time highs. Klaasen, the key finisher for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, had to play clever cricket against Sri Lanka on a pitch with inconsistent but often steep bounce, and plenty of seam movement, finishing with 19 not out off 22 balls.

It was the sort of match that would have been near-impossible in the IPL with the impact sub rule allowing teams to bolster their batting line-up while not weakening their bowling attack. Klaasen told SportsBoom that he would not like to see the international game adopt the gimmick.

“The impact sub rule allowed batsmen to play with much more freedom and the execution was at a different level on pitches that were good. In the IPL, you are measured by the number of sixes you hit and your strike-rate, that’s your bread-and-butter and no-one worries about your average,” Klaasen said.

“But I hope the impact sub does not come into international cricket. It frees up the batting side too much and you can have a batsman at number nine with it, so there’s no need for anyone to hang around.

“It takes away the creativity of batting, it takes away smart batting. Like when Jos Buttler scored a superb century off 60 balls for Rajasthan Royals against Kolkata Knight Riders to chase down 224, having scored just 25 off his first 18 deliveries. The impact sub will take away that sort of brilliance to sum up conditions and hang around a bit, against just bombing the ball over small boundaries.

“It will allow teams to not play the situation so well. We also don’t get a lot of difficult pitches in the IPL, which is why the way teams go extremely hard in the powerplay is the big trend, and then the middle-order adjusts depending on whether you’re in trouble or flying,” Klaasen said.

While South Africa started their T20 World Cup campaign in impressive fashion against Sri Lanka, Lady Luck has not always been on their side in ICC events and they are yet to win one of the main trophies. Klaasen says the number of players they have with experience in the high-pressure IPL arena has helped them perform better in recent World Cups.

“We’ve got off to a very good start which means we can relax a bit and just keep building on that confidence. We need to focus on what we do best and keep that intensity.

“But the Netherlands have beaten us twice and Bangladesh can beat any team on their day, so we need to play the big moments well in those games.

“We’ve matured and gelled nicely as a team and a lot of the guys have played in the IPL, where there is a lot of pressure and expectation. We have been playing good World Cup cricket lately. Of the last three World Cups, we’ve only had one bad one, the 2022 T20 in Australia when we didn’t play well.

“But in Abu Dhabi in the 2021 T20 we only lost one out of five matches but missed out on the semi-finals on nett run-rate, and last year in India in the ODI World Cup, we played some unbelievable cricket to reach the semi-finals,” Klaasen said.

The popular Centurion Lake Hotel has been reborn as just The Centurion Hotel and is now marketing itself as a sports-orientated destination, which makes perfect sense given its close proximity to SuperSport Park and its historical connection with cricket in general.

SuperSport Park came into use in 1986, known then as Centurion Park, as the Northern Transvaal team moved from Pretoria to make their base there. Five years later, the Centurion Lake Hotel opened on the banks of the Hennops River, with the lake and its beautiful waterworks display being a popular gathering spot.

And, given it’s proximity to SuperSport Park (less than a kilometre away), the hotel quickly became the accommodation of choice for both teams playing against Northerns (who then became the Titans), as well as the television commentators for local and international games.

My first experience of the Centurion Lake Hotel happened way back in February 1996 when I travelled up from Pietermaritzburg to cover the final match of the Castle Cup season between Natal and Northern Transvaal for The Natal Witness newspaper.

Natal were chasing a second-successive four-day title, but their hopes were cruelly dashed as the last two days of their match against Northerns were washed out. Instead of one of my earlier away ‘tours’ as a journalist ending in a triumphant celebration of taking the crown, it turned into utter frustration as us visitors watched the rain fall for two long and gloomy days, allowing Western Province, who were eight points behind Natal, to sneak in and win the competition.

Natal did reclaim the four-day crown, renamed the SuperSport Series, in the 1996/97 season, so but for rain they could have completed the first hat-trick of titles since the Transvaal Mean Machine did it in the early 1980s. The washout also denied the great Malcolm Marshall the send-off he deserved for everything he did for Natal cricket, the West Indian legend departing to coach his national team at the end of the season. Even more sadly, the genial, inspirational Marshall succumbed to colon cancer in November 1999.

Commentator Brett Proctor, another considerable figure in Natal cricket, having played, selected and been the stadium manager at Kingsmead, was also staying at the hotel along with the rest of SuperSport’s team. Ever gracious and happy to talk cricket, I remember fondly our chats during the week. Brett is, of course, still an invaluable part of the SuperSport commentary line-up.

Many famous former cricketers stayed at the Centurion Lake Hotel and it was clearly a most convivial spot for them to unwind after the day’s play. Thanks to their presence, the hotel built up an impressive collection of memorabilia and that will be highlighted as each floor is refurbished.

However, one or two commentators down through the years would mention how their rental car left in the underground parking had floated off when the Hennops River burst its banks and the big flood of 2019, followed shortly afterwards by Covid, was why the hotel closed down for three years.

But extensive work has gone into changing the shape of the response to the inevitable floods that come every summer.

“We have built a big wall that will prevent the flooding of the hotel, along with five-ton sluice gates and a monitoring system,” general manager Kamala Douglas pointed out.

The lake itself has also been a problem, many different issues being involved including the build-up of silt, pollution and litter, theft of metal grids and foul smells emanating from the water. But the council has embarked on an ambitious rehabilitation programme to restore the natural flow of the river and, looking down on the lake from our fourth-floor room window, the signs were promising with heavy machinery hard at work. According to Douglas, the plan is to build up sandbanks which will then have grass planted on them, creating a lovely natural area ideal for picnics.

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The Centurion Lake Hotel was a four-star establishment, but the new Centurion Hotel is three stars.

“We are now a three-star hotel because it is more cost-effective. But the rooms are the same and the sizes and standards of everything are still the same too. It allows us to have a light, self-service breakfast,” Douglas explained.

“Each floor will be representing a certain sport, with world record-holders and legends on the walls, as we push the whole sporting connection. We have also lightened the passages, taken out the curtains and modernized a bit. There are also plans for updated showers in all the rooms,” she said.

The rooms are certainly spacious and well-appointed, with tasteful décor and comfortable beds. The twin rooms, unusually, have queen-size beds, and suites are especially spacious.

The hotel has direct access to the Centurion Mall, which is hugely convenient. But if one wants to stay in and eat, then Bruno’s Restaurant and the bar are both very cosy. There is quality food to cater for all tastes, coming out of an older, bigger kitchen than is the norm in modern hotels.

That also makes the Centurion Hotel an ideal functions and conferencing venue.

There is a large ballroom that can fit 170 people and six fully-catered conference rooms can be hired for R450 per head per day, which is an attractive deal. They are very smart, boardroom-type venues with modernised tech, and there is not much else in the area when it comes to conferencing facilities.

The hotel boasts various hospitality areas and exterior adjustments are planned to create something of a summer oasis by the pool overlooking the lake. Big-screen TVs will also be installed in this area.

Despite all this modernisation, the Centurion Hotel still maintains a distinct, classic charm. Perhaps it is all the lovely old wooden finishes around the place, but it almost feels as if one has retreated to a relaxed rural hotel out in nature, and yet one is in the centre of one of the busiest parts of Gauteng.

The Centurion Hotel’s star is certainly rising once again.

Coach Jake White has made an impassioned plea for the Springboks and the public to be patient with Johan Goosen as the Bulls flyhalf star makes a tentative return from a serious knee injury.

Goosen has only played two-and-a-half games of rugby since returning from 11 months out due to knee surgery, and he has understandably not exuded the same confidence as he usually has. Goosen will not be playing for the Bulls against Benetton in Treviso on Friday night because he now has a mild concussion.

The 30-year-old has however been called into the Springbok training camp for the end-of-year tour of Europe, and, with the dearth of flyhalves Jacques Nienaber is currently experiencing, White is hoping that the national coaches don’t push him too hard too soon and that the public don’t expect too much too soon from Goosen.

“I feel sorry for Johan,” White said on Thursday, “because of all the expectation that he will just arrive back in the team, wave his wand and be the best player in the URC competition and the alpha and omega of world rugby for the Springboks.

“He was on fire last year, but then he was out for 11 months and I have never coached any player who has been out that long and comes back and just pulls all the strings like before.

“Especially playing at flyhalf, where you have to make all the decisions, you’re basically the general. He does have a burning desire to get back to the Springbok team, but he is a long way off still from where he wants to be.

“But you don’t always get your opportunity at the time you decide, and he is tough enough and driven enough to take this one. I would have liked him to have had more games before his call-up,” White said.

If Goosen encounters no further injury headwinds between now and next year’s World Cup, White expressed the confidence that he would be able to win the prized tournament for South Africa at flyhalf.

“He’s coming into a very good, settled team, and I have no doubt he can win the World Cup for them. But at the moment he is probably five or six games short of his best, and he needs time, games and backing.

“I signed him for the Bulls until 2026 because I have a long-term plan with him, which is why I handle him like I do, I have more time. I’ve been very conservative because it will be very difficult for him to come back from another knee injury.

“I hope the public is as patient and understanding with him. It takes a while to fire at that level, it won’t just happen overnight,” the veteran coach said.

White confirmed that he had had no contact from Nienaber nor national director of rugby Rassie Erasmus over Goosen’s progress. That might just be because they are still sore over White’s criticism of Springbok selection earlier in the year.