Ken Borland

GolfRSA chief executive Grant Hepburn on Friday extended an olive branch to all those in the golf industry who have been without work and frustrated golfers unable to play, saying the organisation’s patient approach to government had paid off as clubs and courses can now open for both amateurs and professionals.

The Department of Sports, Arts and Culture announced on Friday that any member of a federation, agency, club or body may begin playing golf again from Saturday, subject to certain regulations. Clubs need to complete the Confirmation of Compliance Document and submit it to GolfRSA before they can open their facilities.

“These have been incredibly difficult times with the stress of Lockdown and the number of jobs lost, and we have been aware of the frayed tempers and frustrations. We have been in the same boat with friends and colleagues losing work. But we just had to be patient, we knew government were listening to us and they had given us assurances. But it’s been a very complex time and a massive challenge for golf bodies.

“But we believed in the process we were following with the Department, they were always extremely positive and the whole way through they engaged with us in the right way. We wanted to do the right thing and we needed to wait for the new directives. The most important priority is to save lives and mitigate the risk, and the time it has taken us has allowed us to prepare and put things in place at the clubs,” Hepburn said on Friday.

The CEO warned however that golfers could not just rush out on Saturday and expect everything to be back to normal; the golf industry, which contributes R48 billion to the South African economy, would take time to become a well-oiled machine again.

“The job is not yet done, this is not about celebrating. It’s a step in the right direction but there are still many people involved in golf who still can’t put food on their table. So I hope people continue to support clubs and I know our golfers and clubs will be responsible when it comes to the scanning and the monitoring process. Through the HealthDocs app we’ve bought for all clubs, information can be sent back to government at the push of a button.

“We need to control the numbers of golfers and the times they arrive and leave, but it’s time to get busy now with saving golf clubs through the safe return of golfers, which will generate the income for them to survive and save thousands of jobs, especially of those in the vulnerable sector, which makes up 85% of the industry. We know our clubs can comply and sport can help government because exercise is good at reducing comorbidities,” Hepburn said.

Blistering pace and a keen nose for the tryline meant Bryan Habana was like an arrow zeroing in on its target when it came to try-scoring and the Springbok wing holds the records for the World Cup, Tri-Nations/Rugby Championship, the Springboks and for South Africans in SuperRugby. It is heartening to see the 36-year-old show the same acumen now that he has retired and is in the business world.

A graduate of the Toulouse business school, Habana is now the co-founder of Retroviral, a digital sports marketing agency with a strong emphasis on tech. It’s a career move which probably has its roots back in the early 2000s when he signed up for a BSc IT degree at the then Rand Afrikaans University. But then rugby got in the way.

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically affected everyone’s lifestyles and is likely to force structural adjustments to the economy of just about everything. Sport has been especially hard hit with the global sports industry now projected to face losses of $62 billion.

The Lockdown has also provided much food for thought for entrepreneurs and, typical of the sharp minds of Habana, Mike Sharman and Ben Karpinski, the founders of Retroviral, they have come up with a great new idea that will assist the wellbeing of sportsmen and women as they look to navigate these tumultuous times.

MatchKit.co is a mobile tech platform that allows athletes to build their own website. And not those starchy looking ones that are never updated, have lots of photos that take forever to load and are low on substance.

Within five minutes, sports stars can build themselves a website that highlights their sponsors, automatically integrates into all the big social media channels and provides detailed stats of their engagements on those platforms, has a plug-and-play, secure e-commerce store that will enable them to sell anything from branded merchandise to video or audio shoutouts, and a portal that will enable people to donate to their foundation or favourite charity.

It has often proven a stiff task for sportspeople to promote themselves better, they tend to forget certain sponsors or, in many cases, not even have an Online presence. MatchKit.co certainly appears to be able to overcome these problems.

“I’m extremely excited, MatchKit will add tangible value to athletes and allow them to easily commercialise their brands around the world. I know I was all over the place after our 2007 World Cup win, but MatchKit now allows the athlete to control their commercial rights, it empowers them, while showcasing their sponsors.

“It came about after bouncing ideas off a South African venture capitalist who’s now in the United States and it has a simple set-up. You look at sportspeople Online and not even 10-15% will have their agent’s details there. What if corporates want to engage with them? What happens if they change their agent?” Habana said at the launch this week.

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The great news to come out of the cricketing world in the last week is that the West Indies tour of England looks set to go ahead with the Caribbean squad arriving on Tuesday to quarantine ahead of a three-Test series that will start on July 8. The matches will be played behind closed doors in a bio-secure environment, with the first Test being held in Southampton, followed by two matches at Old Trafford, starting on July 16 and July 24 respectively.

That means the series will end on July 28. South Africa were scheduled to have played their first Test in the West Indies from July 23-27, with the second meant to start on July 31. With a lucrative T20 series against India lined up for the end of August, it now seems likely the Proteas will only meet the West Indians in September and there is still no clarity on whether that series will take place in the Caribbean or in South Africa, or even be moved to a neutral venue like England. The tour of the West Indies was originally meant to be of just over a month’s duration, so it doesn’t look possible to cram in the two Tests and five T20s that were meant to be played even if the Men in Maroon plant themselves in the UK and the Proteas fly over there and quarantine in the second half of July.

And now the pieces are starting to fall into place.

Many people were taken by surprise when CSA director of cricket Graeme Smith, totally unprompted, announced his support for Indian cricket chief Sourav Ganguly to become the new ICC chairman. It was an opinion which was backed by CSA chief executive Jacques Faul.

It was a development that certainly took CSA president Chris Nenzani by surprise, wherever he has been hiding out from the justice that surely deserves to be meted out to him for all but destroying our cricket. He has been silent about all the important matters that have been going on in the game in 2020, such as the efforts to rebuild South African cricket, all the disciplinary hearings that are going on, the resignations of board directors and even the Covid-19 crisis.

But Nenzani poked his head above the parapet to put Smith and Faul right, talking about things like “due process” when it comes to Board matters. What he was really saying was “Graeme and Jacques, you look after the onfield matters and leave the politics to me”.

The reason Nenzani suddenly saw fit to do something presidential was, of course, that he has designs on being the next ICC chairman himself. Which is an absolutely laughable proposition because the rest of the world knows how thoroughly self-serving and incompetent he has been in running the South African game.

It would seem, however, that Smith and Faul have a better grasp of global cricket politics than Nenzani does. In fact I am certain of this because I remember Nenzani telling the media in December 2017 in Port Elizabeth that they would force India to release players for the T20 Global League by refusing South African players permission to play in the IPL!

And now this week we have the news that the ICC T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in Australia in October/November, is likely to be postponed.

That would allow India to fill that gap with the IPL, which is massively important for them as the richest event in world cricket. India, largely on the back of the success of the IPL, bring in around 65% of global cricket revenue and are also the most lucrative team to host because of the massive broadcast rights fees their national team demands. That is why other countries are quite understandably eager to keep in India’s good books.

India are scheduled to make a full tour of Australia from October which is critical for the finances of the game Down Under. But they will need to abide by Australian government public health protocols which are likely to include lengthy quarantine periods and lockdowns, which will not be very pleasant for them.

And that is why Cricket Australia, who stand to make A$300 million from the tour, are falling over backwards to appease India. As a reward for the BCCI agreeing to tour, Australia look set to accept the postponement of the ICC T20 World Cup (it wasn’t even on the summer schedule they announced this week) thereby creating a window for the IPL to be held.

From a South African viewpoint, it seems that Smith and Faul, who travelled to India before Lockdown for very constructive meetings with Ganguly and the BCCI, are in on the game and have said they would be comfortable with the ICC T20 World Cup being shifted to February/March next year. And they have also publicly backed Ganguly.

The pay-off for South African cricket is that India seem committed to coming here at the end of August for three T20s that could add some $50 million to CSA’s depleted coffers.

The importance of India as a global roleplayer in cricket should not be underestimated and the vitriol they are often subjected to is also unwarranted. The fact is they bring the most money into the game because Indians love cricket more than any other nation, and so they should have one of the loudest voices in the ICC boardroom.

The key, of course, is for them to use that power responsibly, and Smith and Faul certainly seem assured that Ganguly, who started India’s blossoming as a global power as captain back in 2000, understands what is best for the modern game as a whole.

Nollis Marais and Pine Pienaar are old friends who have been up and down the Bulls’ coaching structures ever since they arrived at Loftus Versfeld in 2011, but now they have been reunited on the SuperRugby coaching team as director of rugby Jake White announced his overhaul of the senior staff on Wednesday.

Marais was the Bulls’ head coach in 2016-17, a period marked by poor results and an even worse working relationship with high performance manager Xander Janse van Rensburg, who has subsequently been investigated for fraud and corruption. Marais was demoted when John Mitchell arrived at Loftus, but White has now elevated the man with probably the best junior rugby record in the country to the new position of dedicated breakdown specialist for the Bulls SuperRugby team and all sides representing the union.

Pienaar has been the Bulls’ defence coach but has now been shifted to the role of technical advisor, with Joey Mongalo, a former Bulls Currie Cup player, taking up the defence role he fulfilled at the Lions under both Johan Ackermann and Swys de Bruin.

“Teams have always had consultants or forwards coaches addressing the breakdown as part of their broader roles. This will become a key focus area for us going forward, especially with the breakdown laws being changed.

“It also speaks to the type of rugby we will be looking to play. Nollis has been around the block and knows exactly what we need. I have no doubt that he is the perfect man for this job,” White said in a statement released by the Bulls on Wednesday.

White had previously announced the appointment of Russell Winter, formerly with the Lions and Stormers as the forwards coach, and former Springbok flyhalf Chris Rossouw will continue as backline coach.

The Bulls have released Daan Human, who helped turn Lizo Gqoboka and Trevor Nyakane into one of the best propping pairs in SuperRugby last year, to the Springboks and White said a new scrum coach would be announced “in the near future”.

CJ van der Linde, who played 75 Tests for South Africa and was a member of White’s 2007 World Cup winning Springbok squad, and subsequently coached with him at Montpellier, is favoured to replace Human.

In the last week the Bulls have also boosted their playing resources by confirming the return of Springbok wing Travis Ismaiel and the signing of talented youngsters in former Western Province hooker Schalk Erasmus and Walt Steenkamp, a 2.03m, 121kg lock who has played for both the North-West Leopards and the Free State Cheetahs.