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.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180825/282518659358786

The Sunfoil Series – the four-day domestic franchise competition – came down to the most thrilling of conclusions last weekend with the Knights claiming the title by just 1.78 points, the equivalent of 89 runs over a tournament that lasted 10 weeks, once again proving that, at least in the minds of the players and the aficionados of the sport, it is the premier trophy in the local game.

Nicky Boje, the Knights coach, confirmed that the four-day competition was the main target in their minds this season, and the other franchise coaches made similar comments through the campaign.

The thing about four-day cricket is that it provides the most all-encompassing test of a player’s skills and of a team’s quality – it’s essentially 40 days of cricket, 96 overs a day, so an examination that can last 3840 overs.

And it still came down to the narrowest of margins, so small in fact that Knights captain Theunis de Bruyn gave a large part of the credit for his team’s triumph to a partnership of just 10 runs between the last pair in their penultimate game against the Cape Cobras.

Akhona Kula and Tshepo Ntuli took the Knights’ first innings in Paarl from 143 for nine to 153 to get them one batting point – 150 is set as the milestone for the first batting bonus point, make 149 and you get zero. Even though the Knights went on to lose the match by 151 runs, that single point made their life a lot easier in the final game against the Highveld Lions because it meant they were targeting 430 in 100 overs rather than around 480.

“It allowed us to believe a little bit more,” De Bruyn said, and we all know belief plays a massive role in any achievement.

I just wish Cricket South Africa had a bit more belief in their four-day competition. It would be unrealistic to expect huge crowds to attend, but they could certainly do more to generate greater interest in the tournament that makes our Test cricketers. They have scheduled media sessions with the franchises before T20 and Momentum One-Day Cup games, why not before Sunfoil Series matches?  Their decision to no longer pay for a scorer to sit in the press box during four-day games suggests their attitude is to cut investment in the competition rather than promote it.

Scorers are an essential help to the media in terms of getting all their stats and figures correct, and it is heartening that CSA’s official statistician, Andrew Samson, is very much a long-format man.

The Oracle, as our media call him – I’m not sure what the BBC Test Match Special team call him but he is also their official statistician – has just brought out a book, The Moon is Toast, which is a celebration of all the quirky statistics the wonderful game of cricket throws up, written in the format of a year-long diary.

Copies of the book are available from http://tinyurl.com/hgbulfp and the wry humour of Samson makes what could become a boring read into an entertaining delight.

Long-form cricket obviously lends itself to more statistical gems than the wham-bam! of limited-overs cricket and the greater scope for all sorts of possibilities to occur was shown by the dramatic conclusion of our own four-day competition.

The longer the game, the greater the chance of an amazing comeback, just as the New South Wales team did in their recent Sheffield Shield game against Queensland at the Sydney Cricket Ground. They were two for two in their first innings before going on to make 603 for six declared which, Samson tells me, is only the fourth time in all first-class cricket that a team has lost their first two wickets for two or less runs but still gone on to score more than 600.

The South African example is Griqualand West recovering from one for two and then three for three to make 602 all out against Rhodesia in Kimberley in 1930, thanks to a double-century by the exotically-named Xenophon Balaskas, the Test all-rounder.

The Highveld Lions may be languishing in fifth place on the Sunfoil Series log, but it’s been a topsy-turvy competition and their colours have not been lowered yet as they go into the final weekend of fixtures in South Africa’s premier domestic tournament.

The Lions are 11.28 points behind the log-leading Titans and 8.90 points behind their opponents at the Wanderers from Thursday – the Knights.

So they simply have to beat the Knights and hope that the Warriors manage to prevent the Titans from winning their match in Benoni. They could also do with the Dolphins and Cape Cobras drawing in Durban.

That the Lions are still in the running is thanks to their remarkable, last-ditch 14-run victory over the Warriors last weekend in East London, set up by a couple of bold declarations.

“We’re happy that we’re still alive and the key now is to win this weekend. We’ve played well at home over the last four years and it’s simple, we just have to control our own game and not concentrate on the others. We can’t have one eye on the other games because we’re up against a quality side in the Knights. But we will keep fighting like we did when we finished in the dark with just two or three overs left against the Warriors,” coach Geoff Toyana told The Citizen on Tuesday.

It was a special effort by the Lions attack to dismiss the Warriors for just 243 in 68 overs on a rainy final day and Toyana praised his bowlers after the weather had forced captain Stephen Cook to declare earlier than he would have liked.

“It was a great result and the character shown, the belief and fight, was very good. Aya Myoli (3-58) really came through for us by striking up front and kept running in, while Beuran Hendricks (3-70) and Bjorn Fortuin (3-39) were also very good on the last day.”

Keith Dudgeon and Nono Pongolo, who did not play against the Warriors, have been retained in the squad to meet the Knights and one of them could play if the Lions decide to go with an all-pace attack.

The Knights will come to Johannesburg with Theunis de Bruyn and Rudi Second amongst the most successful batsmen in the competition, while fast bowlers Duanne Olivier and Marchant de Lange have spearheaded their attack.