Ken Borland

SA Rugby announced this week that this coming SuperRugby season will see the local franchises teaming up with the Marvel Comics Universe, with each of them being assigned a kit based on one of the famous superheroes from the recently-passed Stan Lee’s wonderful imagination.

Goodness knows our Super Rugby teams can certainly do with some superpowers, but unfortunately this arrangement will only be for the local derbies, so it won’t really help our chances of overcoming the dominance of the New Zealand teams or keeping ahead of the Australians.

The Bulls kit will have the blue colours of Captain America, the Lions will be based on Spider-Man’s red and black, the Sharks’ kit will be inspired by Black Panther and the Stormers will be wearing Thor’s colours. Ironically, rugby’s Thor – Duane Vermeulen – has moved from the Stormers to the Bulls, via Toulon.

This all got me thinking about what a Marvel 1^st XV rugby side would look like … This is a game I love to play and another variant of it often occurs during the hot midday hours in a game reserve and I choose a rugby team based on the animals in the park. You know, rhino and hippo in the front row with the honey badger at hooker, elephant and giraffe as the lock pairing. Cheetah and springbok are on the wings, lion and leopard in the loose trio, along with hyaena as the openside flank and monkey at scrumhalf. Buffalo would have quite the physical presence at inside centre, but does the elegant Sable Antelope play at flyhalf or fullback?

In our Marvel XV, Captain America, the archetypal blue-eyed boy, would be an obvious choice as skipper and flyhalf, much like our own Naas Botha. But there is another option for captain – Black Panther, being the king of Wakanda, is a great leader in his own right and his agility, immense strength and great intelligence make him the ideal eighthman.

The Beast, not Tendai the Tremendous but the blue-furred simian/feline hero of both the X-Men and the Avengers, is another agile and super-strong contender for the loose trio and would be my openside. Who better to play blindside flank than the real Iron Man?

In the second row, it is a case of putting together the classic pairing of the physically imposing number four with a more mobile, beanpole number five. Colossus of X-Men fame is not only 6’7 tall but can also transform his entire body into a type of organic steel. According to Marvel Comics, while in his armoured form, Colossus requires no food, water, or even oxygen to sustain himself, and is extremely resistant to injury. He is capable of withstanding great impacts, large calibre bullets, falling from tremendous heights, electricity, and certain magical attacks. In other words he’s pretty much like Bakkies Botha.

His lock partner would be the brilliant scientist and leader of the Fantastic Four, Reed Richards aka Mr Fantastic. He has the ability to stretch his body into any shape he chooses, so even the most wayward lineout throws would be in his grasp and his ability to steal ball at the rucks would be unsurpassed, which differentiates him from Victor Matfield.

A front row of his Fantastic Four colleague The Thing at tighthead and The Hulk at loosehead would be impossible to shift and would certainly boss the gainline, while Wolverine would bring a ferocity to the hooker position that has not been seen since the days of John Allan headbutting Sean Fitzpatrick in the first scrum of a Springboks/All Blacks Test.

For me, the sharp-witted Ant Man, with his ability to shrink through any gap or enlarge himself to block any hole, is the obvious choice for scrumhalf, while Quicksilver and the Falcon, whizzing about on his jet-powered wings, are the obvious heroes to play on the wings.

Thor, the god of thunder, would be a powerful force at inside centre that not many would get past, while Spiderman would be a nimble and superstrong outside centre, with his spider sense able to alert him of any threats to the defence.

Finally, I would like Daredevil at fullback, also imbued with super senses and tremendous agility, even though most modern coaches now seem to prefer a more conservative selection in the number 15 jersey.

I’m sure the late great Stan Lee will forgive me my misappropriation of his creations for a rugby team, but daydreams are what he sold and I have a feeling he would approve. I’m pretty sure the idea of putting them on rugby jerseys never crossed his mind though.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-kzn/20181208/282329681019157

The Proteas want to take young, courageous cricketers without the old baggage to the next World Cup, and much of the coming season will be dedicated to finding those players, according to the captain Faf du Plessis.

The 2018/19 season was officially launched in Centurion on Tuesday and, despite the attraction of the Test series against Pakistan, the focus of the summer will be on what happens at the end of the season – the World Cup in England.

“Our focus is not on the short-term, everything is looking ahead to the World Cup, so sometimes the team that is selected might not be the best available, but that’s how we get guys more experience ahead of our goal, the World Cup. We want to give a few guys more time and we will speed up that process now, even though our results have not been as good as we would have wanted.

“But it means we can see some young, courageous cricketers, and I believe that’s how we can win the World Cup, by losing the baggage. We don’t want the players to be limited and so mentally challenged; the mental side of things is the only hurdle we have left to conquer because we have the skills and we’ve done the planning, we’ve just lacked in mentality,” Du Plessis said on Tuesday.

The road to the World Cup includes ODIs against Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka at home, as well as a short tour to Australia, and Du Plessis said the matches will be used mostly to fine-tune the side mentally as well as sift through the last few pieces of the selection puzzle.

“We want to try and free up the guys mentally, so there’s no fear of failure, the players must get out there and be able to do the job, and we must equip them for that time. That extra 10-20% mentally is where we have not been as good as we could be. I’ve been to two World Cups and we’ve had different approaches in the lead-up and also mentally.

“So I’ve seen the benefits of what has worked and we will try and take from that, but I’ve also seen the bad. A few guys have shown that they are made for international cricket, they’re ready, and a few guys need more time. So we’ll probably only have a more settled team when we play Pakistan and Sri Lanka next year, then we can look more at the style of play we want for the 15-man squad,” Du Plessis said.

https://citizen.co.za/sport/south-african-sport/sa-cricket-sport/2004903/faf-proteas-want-fearless-men-without-baggage-for-world-cup/

Stephen Cook on Wednesday stood down as the Highveld Lions captain after their disappointing 2017/18 season but the franchise are still going to enjoy the benefits of his leadership and experience, with the 35-year-old set to fulfill the role of a senior pro as new coach Enoch Nkwe looks to rebuild.

“I have captained the side for the better part of five years and we had some success, but I’ve been thinking of standing down. At the back end of last season, with all the uncertainty over coaches, would not have been the right time though, but with the changing of the guard it’s a good time now for a fresh start.

“I spoke to Enoch and my leadership will not be lost. I know what has worked effectively in the past is to have the benefit of a senior player who is not the captain, and in my career, guys like Adam Bacher and Neil McKenzie are examples of that. So it’s just a different position I’ll be filling and I certainly don’t see it as the end of my career,” Cook told The Citizen on Wednesday.

Cook denied that the captaincy had distracted him from his batting, after a mixed season in 2017/18. Although he had many failures, when he occupied the crease for some time he still scored heavily and a return of 632 runs at an average of 37.17, including three centuries, was still solid.

“I’ve played some of my best cricket while I’ve been captain, but last season was a bit patchy, I was not as consistent as I would have liked but I still felt it was a good campaign. Of course cricket is a performance sport and if I don’t get the numbers on the board now I will be in trouble like anyone else.

“But I’m excited about next season, Enoch and I played together from when we were 11, we came through the ranks together. My resigning might actually help him because I might not have been his first-choice skipper and he can now go ahead freely with the new way he wants to bring in,” Cook said.

This has been a season of renewal for the Bulls and one of the fresh faces to have really come to the fore in SuperRugby has been loose forward Marco van Staden, a man of frenetic energy, great physicality and no little skill in doing his ball-pilfering job at the rucks.

A couple of the writers who regularly cover the Bulls were fortunate enough to get to interview the 22-year-old recently and he revealed that he played no provincial schoolboy rugby. This is probably largely due to the fact that he went to Hoerskool Bekker in Magaliesburg, not one of the traditional rugby powers.

He has made it this far – now being rated as one of South Africa’s most promising young forwards – thanks to his single-minded determination to fulfil his dream of being a professional rugby player and a bursary to study sports science from the University of Pretoria. Van Staden graduated last month and is the exception to the rule when it comes to how rugby players move through the development pipeline.

This got me thinking about the numerous, who knows how many, talents that fall through the cracks in South African rugby because of our obsession with a handful of elite rugby schools and provincial U19 and U21 competitions and the Varsity Cup.

Our results whenever we get to play against other countries – whether in the Pro14, SuperRugby or at Springbok level – show that our rugby is not well. The main reason for that is the terrible structure of our game. We desperately need a system that includes as much as possible of the undeniable talent that comes flooding through every year.

Instead, our rugby is elitist and there are barriers everywhere. It starts at school level where a few elite schools just get richer and richer through the ridiculous amount of attention that is lavished on them. Just turn on the rugby channel and you are very likely to be watching a schoolboy game.

These youngsters are fawned over from a young age and if you didn’t go to the ‘right’ school then chances are you won’t be playing in Craven Week, which means you won’t get snapped up by a province or university; in other words you are out of the system, generally for good.

Having been taught win-at-all-costs rugby at school level, to the detriment of skills development, these cloistered kids become professional rugby players at the age of 19, big fish in a small pond just going to another small pond. Many of them play in a Varsity Cup that shares little resemblance to the sort of rugby they will need to play if they are going to make it with the Springboks.

That rugby is being jealousy guarded as the preserve of a few was rammed home by two recent incidents.

Wanderers U21 players laid a complaint of vicious racism and assault against Roodepoort, with the disciplinary hearing held on May 9 by the Golden Lions Rugby Union. Seven weeks later and this issue has still not been resolved.

If South African rugby wants their sport to be played and enjoyed by most people in this country then incidents like this cannot be tolerated. If a blind eye is turned to what happens at club level, SA Rugby are discarding the probable solution to their structural crisis. By growing a healthy club rugby culture between the junior and professional ranks, there will be a pipeline that provides opportunity for way more talent.

But this lack of inclusivity is even seen at school level. Hilton College and Paul Roos (still sponsored by a Steinhoff subsidiary) fielded lilywhite teams in their Premier Interschools matches against Maritzburg College and Grey High respectively. Encouraged by blanket television coverage, they are allowed to get away with this gross dereliction of duty.

Both those schools spend a fortune on recruitment, so it is obvious making sure their teams reflect the demographics of our country by obtaining Black talent does not even register on their radar. And these are the schools which are meant to be preparing our children for a future South Africa!