Ken Borland

Probably only the most ardent of South African rugby fans will know the name Dugald Macdonald, but he is Springbok number 470 having first slipped the famous Green and Gold jersey over his head in a third-floor room of the President Hotel in Sea Point, on 7 June 1974, while a typical Cape Town cold front splattered rain on to the balcony outside.

Macdonald would wear the jersey that had captured his imagination only once in a Test match, and that was actually a fortnight later when he played in the second Test against the British Lions at Loftus Versfeld. That’s because he was a reserve for the first Test at Newlands, and in those days the replacements sat in the stadium because the ‘bench’ was hardly ever used.

In a disastrous 3-0 series loss for the Springboks, he was destined to become one of the unfortunate one-Test wonders as the national selectors panicked and chose 36 different players for the four Tests, the final match in Johannesburg being drawn. According to veteran rugby writer John Bishop, who covered the entire tour, “Dugald should have been there from start to finish, he was one hell of a player. One of those guys who were simply forgotten about in the chaos of the 1974 tour, a powerful number eight with excellent ball skills. He should have been a Bok great”.

Macdonald has just released a book about the whole experience – the series being one of the most traumatic in South African rugby – called Ja-Nee. It is an engrossing look into the past, a study in how the mentality of Springbok rugby was built and how those attitudes still influence it today, but as with all great writing, it also brings applications and warnings for the future.

And it’s not just about rugby either. It provides a fascinating snapshot of White South African life in the 1970s. It is evocative, humorous and thought-provoking all at the same time.

The sun was shining brightly on that midwinter’s day in Pretoria, but Macdonald makes a decent argument for the Springboks not so much being panicky as arrogant. They were convinced that the Lions could not possibly be better than them and a few changes would sort out their scrum and allow them to dominate possession.

It’s a recurring story in our rugby: Back in 1992 when we returned from isolation and expected to still be better than Australia and New Zealand because “the Currie Cup is the strongest competition in the world” and instead lost both Tests comfortably. And then just last week the Bulls travelled from Pretoria to Italy, everyone back home confident that they would be returning from their jaunt with the Rainbow Cup, only to be played off the park by Benetton Treviso.

When South African rugby retreats into the laager mentality, we tend to become dangerously insular whenever we have been cut off from international trends.

Macdonald was not your typical Springbok of the 1970s, he was a city boy, schooled in Cape Town, he was an Oxford Blue and also played for Parma in Italy and Toulouse in France. Some might say paranoid 1970s South Africa was never likely to give him many more than one Test cap.

This broader world view has allowed him to identify an over-reliance on physicality as being a possible albatross around the necks of the current world champions, who have not played since outmuscling England in the World Cup final in Japan in November 2019. While the Springboks have been inactive, the rest of the world has been plotting.

“If we understood the roots of South African rugby then we’ll know why physicality has actually been responsible for many of our defeats. I fear we are winding up for another one because physicality is all the Lions are talking about. But if we don’t have technique and lucidity, physicality can only get you so far.

“Whenever we have just played inklim rugby it has been the beginning of the end, it’s been a problem down the years, and the same thing is growing again. Physicality is great at the right time and in the right place, but so much thought needs to go into it otherwise it’s helluva easy to get carried away. Fortunately we have really good leaders in the game now,” Macdonald told me.

*Ja-Nee is published by Flyleaf Publishing and is widely available in bookstores and online.

Readers of Gary Player’s life story will know how much South Africa’s greatest golfer was affected by losing his mother at a young age, but ironically it has been the tragedy that connects him to one of this country’s best rising talents – Garrick Higgo.

Player’s mother Muriel succumbed to cancer in 1943, when he was just eight years old. The last time he saw her was on Christmas Day, two days later she died. Player has said that something broke in him that day and he has been trying to fix it ever since, which partly explains the remarkable passion and tenacity of one of the hardest-working sports stars there has ever been.

Higgo was introduced to golf by his father Guillermo, but in 2008, when he was just nine, the family, which includes two siblings, were involved in a car crash, hit by another vehicle, and his Dad was fatally injured.

“I met Gary Player just after that because we both had a holiday home at Plettenberg Bay and we used to play and practise a lot together, play nine holes in the afternoon. His Mom died when he was eight, which was around the age I was when I lost my Dad. So we connected, it is a real and amazing connection, and it’s been there since before all the good things happened to me.

“It was only when I was around 12 or 13 that I totally understood who Gary Player is. I would be watching the Majors and I would see Gary’s name always popping up. He calls me a lot and he has really helped my game and especially the mental aspects of it,” Higgo says of his remarkable friendship with someone more than sixty years his senior.

It is Higgo who is now playing in the Majors and the lessons Player, who won nine times on golf’s biggest stages, has imparted should stand him in very good stead. The 22-year-old made his Major debut in May at the PGA Championship and made the cut, before really getting to grips with the brutal Kiawah Island course with a 69 in the final round that saw him rise into a tie for 64^th.

In last weekend’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, Higgo missed the cut by two strokes, but one should take into account the hectic build-up the Paul Roos Gymnasium product had to that tournament. In a way, Higgo was the victim of his own success as he won the Palmetto Championship the week before, in just his second PGA Tour start.

And with a clearly emotional and overjoyed Player giving Higgo a phone call at the winner’s press conference, the U.S. media understandably had a new sensation to focus on, especially given his three wins in the last year on the European Tour.

“It had an impact because I was very tired mentally, each one of my wins has changed my life and the one on the U.S. PGA Tour the most significantly. My caddy, who is also my best friend, also had to fly back before the U.S. Open because his wife went into labour. So I wasn’t exactly fresh going in, but I played alright and just had a couple of bad bounces.

“I’m learning from each week I play and it made it tough winning the week before the U.S. Open. I didn’t play my best, I was mentally drained, I had a different caddy and I just missed the cut. And I’ve learnt so far in the Majors that you’ve got to have everything working, you have to do everything well. You can’t lose focus, if you are slightly off-line you will be punished.

“But the more I play in the Majors, the better I’ll get. I need to tighten up on my misses and just get more comfortable with everything going on,” Higgo said this week.

Naturally, he knows there is still plenty of room for improvement in his game as well.

“A couple of things in my swing were a bit off so I went back to a draw, that’s the way I like to hit it, I’ve gone back to what is comfortable for me. I’ve also had to work on my short-game technique because the pins are always tucked here in America; I needed to figure out how to get a lot more spin on my chips and get them shorter.

“I wold say my strengths are my mental game, putting and the short game, those are definitely my strongest suits, and my iron play has always been solid. I’m a little streaky off the tee though, I’m generally straight and can hit it a decent distance, but I would like to hit a lot more fairways,” Higgo said.

With arguably the best mental mentor one could have in Player, Higgo certainly seems equipped with the right stuff to keep making waves in world golf. And armed with a simple philosophy, it is understandable why the left-hander has been able to win so quickly at every new rung of the golfing ladder he has climbed.

“I treat every event the same, I don’t make them into big things, whether it’s a Big Easy Tour event or a PGA tournament, and I think that helps mentally. The other guys in a PGA event are obviously going to be better than those in a Big Easy tournament, but I don’t worry about them really, I’m just focused on my own game.”

With the sort of start to his international career Higgo has made, it is the opposition who are surely going to be worrying about him more and more.

A lot of sand has disappeared down the hourglass and a ton of hard work has been put in since South Africa’s last away Test series triumph, but Keshav Maharaj was again at the centre of the success as his hat-trick and five-wicket haul bowled the Proteas to a 158-run win and a 2-0 series result against the West Indies at St Lucia on Monday.

South Africa last won an away Test series against New Zealand in March 2017, with Maharaj the man of the match for his six for 40 in the second innings of the only Test they won, in Wellington. The left-arm spinner was the hero again on Monday as he claimed only the second hat-trick for South Africa in Test history.

Maharaj struck in the penultimate over before lunch, dismissing Kieran Powell (51), Jason Holder (0) and Joshua de Silva (0) with successive deliveries as Anrich Nortje, Keegan Petersen and Wiaan Mulder took catches of increasing difficulty as the West Indies collapsed from 90 for two to 107 for six. Chasing 324, they were eventually all out for 165 with Maharaj finishing with five for 36 in 17.3 overs and Kagiso Rabada taking three for 44.

Opener Powell looked in the mood to stick around, but then suddenly decided to tee-up Maharaj and slog-swept him straight to Nortje at deep midwicket. The tall Holder then inside-edged his first ball on to his pad from where it rebounded quickly to short-leg, Petersen taking a sharp catch quite high to his left.

The hat-trick ball saw Mulder snatch a marvellous one-handed grab at leg-slip, diving to his right, as Da Silva tickled Maharaj around the corner.

South Africa’s only other Test hat-trick came in 1960 when fast bowler Geoff Griffin performed the feat against England at Lord’s.

“There were so many thoughts going through my head before the third wicket as to what delivery to bowl, and in the end it just drifted down leg, it could have been a much better ball. But credit to Wiaan for an amazing catch, whatever he wants to eat or drink tonight is probably on me. I didn’t realise our last away series win was as far back as 2017, so this feels really good.

“As a team we want to move in a different direction and this was the first obstacle, so it’s really good to get over it. We want to be the polished article and to keep being ruthless is really important for this team. Fair play too to our fast bowlers, who were superb. They just don’t give the batsmen an inch, so they tried to score off me and I reaped the rewards,” Maharaj said.

Kagiso Rabada provided the fire up front with three wickets but it was spinner Keshav Maharaj who made the key strikes as he claimed only the second hat-trick for South Africa in Test history to send the West Indies plummeting to 109 for six at lunch on the fourth day of the second Test at St Lucia.

The left-arm spinner removed Kieran Powell (51), Jason Holder (0) and Joshua de Silva (0) with successive deliveries in the penultimate over before lunch, Anrich Nortje, Keegan Petersen and Wiaan Mulder taking catches of increasing difficulty to help Maharaj to the wonderful achievement.

Opener Powell looked in the mood to stick around as the West Indies went in search of a steep target of 324 for victory, but then suddenly decided to tee-up Maharaj and slog-swept him straight to Nortje at deep midwicket. The tall Holder then inside-edged his first ball on to his pad from where it rebounded quickly to short-leg, Petersen taking a sharp catch quite high to his left.

The hat-trick ball saw Mulder snatch a marvellous one-handed grab at leg-slip, diving to his right, as Da Silva tickled Maharaj around the corner.

South Africa’s only other Test hat-trick came in 1960 when fast bowler Geoff Griffin performed the feat against England at Lord’s.

Despite Maharaj’s success, the St Lucia pitch continues to be a haven for fast bowling and Rabada was outstanding up front as he had West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite (6) caught in the slips in his second over of the day.

A vicious, superbly-directed short ball then saw Shai Hope (2) glove a catch to the slips, while Kyle Mayers looked set for bigger things but eventually succumbed to some fine pressure bowling on 34 when he skied a wild pull at a delivery outside off stump from Rabada and Proteas captain Dean Elgar took his second well-judged catch of the morning.

Jermaine Blackwood survived through to lunch on 5 not out, while Kemar Roach is on one. The West Indies were only too happy for the sanctuary of the changeroom after their collapse from 90 for two, losing four wickets for 17 runs, left them still needing 215 runs to level the series with just four wickets standing.