Ken Borland

One has to admire the Lions Rugby Union for the way they have been able to dig their way out of the abyss of financial ruin that faced them when they were relegated from SuperRugby in 2013. Just five years later and they are unquestionably South Africa’s premier franchise, the one most young players probably want to play for and producing a very popular brand of rugby.

But amidst all this success and SuperRugby trailblazing, there have also been messages coming out of Ellis Park that paint a picture of a franchise that is still anchored in the past in many ways and does not seem able to be the standardbearer of a future game all rugby fans should be hoping becomes truly the sport of all South Africans.

As much as the Lions deserve huge credit, one has to call them out for some of the mixed messages that they have sent out recently; as we have seen after another week of anguish caused by awful social media messages, perceptions are vital when it comes to inclusivity.

With Swys de Bruin jetting off overseas with the Springboks, the Golden Lions needed a new head coach for their Currie Cup campaign. But instead of heading for the safety of port and elevating one of the assistant coaches in Philip Lemmer or Joey Mongalo, or even promoting Bafana Nhleko, who has coached the SuperSport Rugby Challenge team as well as the Lions U19s and U21s and been an assistant with the Junior Springboks, they chose strength and conditioning coach Ivan van Rooyen.

Now Van Rooyen has undoubtedly played a very important part in the Lions’ success over the last few years, but his helicoptering into the head coaching job was inevitably attacked as being anti-transformation in certain quarters.

At this delicate stage in our country’s history, organisations really need to be sensitive about how their actions will be perceived by the majority. I am not saying it was wrong to appoint Van Rooyen, who played for the Lions at junior provincial level, and has gained some insights from Rob Walter, the former Proteas strength and conditioning guru who then became head coach at the Titans cricket team and enjoyed great success.

But the reasons for Van Rooyen’s appointment were never fully explained and even more shade is thrown at the Ellis Park hierarchy when Van Rooyen himself says he won’t be doing any actual coaching but is in more of a managerial role.

Why was this not explained properly on the day of his appointment, thus avoiding plenty of bad publicity?

The prospect of getting involved in rugby in Gauteng for a young Black player or coach is daunting enough without considerable barriers being put in their way, like the recent acquittal of Roodepoort U21 players on charges of racism during their April match against Wanderers.

While acknowledging that Sanele Ngcobo of Wanderers was “an honest and truthful witness” who testified that racial slurs had been made, the Golden Lions Rugby Union disciplinary tribunal ruled that because he could not prove who had specifically spoken the words, a not guilty verdict was appropriate.

For the physical abuse that degenerated into a mass brawl at the end of the game, one Roodepoort player was effectively handed a one-match ban! Talk about a slap on the wrist … and another slap in the face for Black rugby players.

To add insult to injury, when Wanderers were on their way to Roodepoort to play a later fixture, their bus broke down and they missed the game. The GLRU docked them five points, meaning Roodepoort now qualify for the Gold Cup instead of them!

Having reinvented themselves so spectacularly on the field, the Lions rugby union now really need to focus on the message they are sending out to their future market.

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In the previous decade, when the Nedbank Golf Challenge was held in December and was able to attract top-10 players, Sun City was famous for the congestion that would occur throughout the resort as corporate South Africa and students would come flocking for their annual end-of-year party.

Crowds have dwindled since those days, as both the sport and the economy have changed, but last year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge was noticeable for the upturn in crowd figures and just a busier feel around the resort and on the fairways scattered amongst the ancient volcanic craters of the Pilanesberg.

A major reason for that was the focus Sun International and their hospitality partners Circa put on making the whole NGC experience more spectator-friendly and not just an event catering for the corporates safely secluded away in their air-conditioned marquees. And, given the success of 2017, they are going to drive for even bigger crowd numbers for this year’s tournament from November 8-11.

“The move from December, when it was the year-end function for most spectators, to November meant we had to worry about losing the public, especially the scholars and those writing matric exams, and we lost a lot of the day visitors we traditionally had. So we’ve been trying to make sure we bring those crowds back and the crowds are getting back to the way we begun with, with more than 65 000 people coming to Sun City.

“So this year we’re making even more space for the public, without changing things for the corporates. We’re opening up a huge amount more space on 18 with a three-tier structure that has a lot more ground-level space and will provide great public viewing. The entertainment area was one of the highlights of last year’s tournament, we want to capitalise on that and its times will be extended for a lot longer. Circa are running the public areas and are bringing in a lot of variety,” Eugene Boniface, the group manager for content at Sun International, said.

Workmen have been on-site since April, with 14 600 square-metres of infrastructure being set up, and 1300 tonnes of scaffolding, with Circa promising a real amphitheatre around the 18^th green. Apart from the focus on making the Nedbank Golf Challenge more crowd-friendly, work has also been going on on the course.

The 17^th tee has been moved around to add 30-odd metres to the tee-shot and make it more difficult, while the bunkers have undergone massive change with grass now on the faces rather than sand, to make it more playable for the golfers after there were complaints.

Eben Etzebeth

Physically imposing locks are common in South Africa, but there remains something special about Etzebeth. At 2.03m and 117kg he has the physical attributes needed for his set-piece roles, but the 23-year-old is also a formidable ball-carrier, a good linking man and a force at the breakdown. In his prime and with 37 caps to his name, the time is surely right for Etzebeth to explode on the world stage and prove himself a worthy successor to Bakkies Botha.

John Hardie

Dynamic openside flank John Hardie has proved his worth in SuperRugby for the Highlanders and now he needs to prove his commitment to the Scottish cause after controversially being parachuted into the squad, without being associated to a club in Scotland but having a Scottish grandmother. A consistent performer with a huge work-rate, he brings physicality and excellent skills and judgement to the crucial breakdown area.

Lelei Amanaki Mafi

Most Japanese rugby players are small and nippy, but eighthman Lelei Mafi weighs 111kg and is 6’2, which is sizeable for any back-rower. Strong, fast and athletic, Mafi is a marvellous support runner and a terrific force in the collisions that dominate rugby. The 25-year-old of Tongan heritage plays for NTT Shining Arcs.

Tim Nanai-Williams

The 26-year-old cousin of Sonny Bill Williams is a special talent with game-breaking skill who Samoa have mostly used at fullback, although he can play almost anywhere in the backline. Nanai-Williams has provided plenty of excitement in the colours of the pacy Chiefs side that won two Super Rugby titles, but gave up on his dream of playing for the All Blacks in favour of the land of his parents.

Takudzwa Ngwenya

The scorer of the 2007 try of the tournament when he skinned Bryan Habana (who would go on to be named IRB Player of the Year), is the USA’s star player and the first-choice wing of the Biarritz team which is trying to get out of the second division of French rugby. One of only three Americans to appear in the colours of the Barbarians, Ngwenya’s pace is still blistering and the 30-year-old will obviously be relishing a potential rematch with Habana along with the rest of us.

Bulls coach John Mitchell’s comments this week about how he is going to set about changing the entire model of how the franchise recruits and develops players reinforces the belief that South African rugby as a whole needs to take ownership of the fact that we are extremely wasteful when it comes to our talent.

The fact that we have so much rugby talent in this country is both a blessing and a curse. The downside of being so well-endowed with athletes is that very little attention is paid to putting systems in place that will get the best out of young players.

One gets the feeling that the current approach of our franchises’ recruitment officers is to just try and buy up as much talent as possible at Craven Week, let nature run its course and hope one or two of them turn into stars.

Contrast this with a country like Australia where rugby union has a small portion of the talent ‘pie’ and whatever players they have, they have to fully invest in them and maximise their potential. Jake White used to joke that if prop Bill Young, who played 46 times for Australia, had to pitch up at Stellenbosch University they would have sent him to the third XV straight away. But the point was that Young was ‘made’ into a solid Test front-ranker, whereas in South Africa he probably would have just disappeared.

By focusing on quantity and not quality, and by just worrying about who is going to play in the provincial U19 and U21 sides rather than developing the actual skills of the players, South Africa have come to the point where their SuperRugby squads are made up of many players who are not good enough to play in the competition, according to Mitchell, a former All Blacks coach.

Rugby in this country needs to stop being so insular and needs to be open to world trends, including those in other sports.

Even I, who usually uses watching football as a sleeping pill, have been impressed by many aspects of the Soccer World Cup and have been thinking how these could translate into the world of rugby union.

By staging a brilliant counter-attack to beat Japan at the death, Belgium produced a magnificent passage of play that was reminiscent of some of the superb tries scored by the All Blacks in recent years.

Any sports lover would have been impressed by Romelu Lukaku’s brilliant running off the ball and his dummy that set up Belgium’s winner; the lesson for rugby players was that often you can have more impact through what you do without the ball than with it.

And the image of football fans as being hooligans has been challenged by the splendid Japanese and Senegalese fans, who embody all that is good about sport, and they even cleaned up afterwards!

I have also been watching hockey this week and their new interpretations surrounding the use of the aerial ball or overhead might provide some help to rugby lawmakers currently grappling with the ball-in-the-air issues that are bedevilling their game.

Hockey have simplified the whole issue by basically saying whoever is under the ball has all the rights and cannot be played until they have the ball under control. Perhaps if the defender under the ball in rugby had similar protection it would limit kicks to being into space only and would eliminate all the aerial contests that are proving so difficult to control.

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