Ken Borland

Lock Jason Jenkins has played just the one Test for the Springboks, back in 2018, but now that he has returned to the Bulls on loan from Toyota Verblitz, the beefy 24-year-old has the chance to establish himself in the national squad for the rest of the year, with the legendary Victor Matfield seeing him as a definite option for the Green and Gold.

Jenkins has played for Verblitz since 2017, but represented the Bulls in Super Rugby as recently as last year. But the Pretoria-born St Alban’s College product is now entirely a Verblitz player, with Jake White’s former club agreeing to loan him to Loftus Versfeld until the end of October.

Talks are ongoing though to have Jenkins for longer and the Bulls are hopeful they can extend the loan. Being based in South Africa will also improve Jenkins’ chances of adding to his solitary Springbok appearance against Wales in Washington, especially with RG Snyman, Lood de Jager and Eben Etzebeth all having suffered injuries recently in Europe. That could be just the carrot needed to lure him into a longer stay, because Japan’s Covid-19 travel restrictions are onerous.

Matfield, the most-capped Springbok ever, believes Jenkins can certainly provide able back-up in the number four jersey.

“Jason is a number four lock in the same mould as Bakkies Botha or an Eben Etzebeth, he plays in the same style as them. He’s a big, strong ball-carrier and very good in the lineouts too. I’ve seen him call the lineouts before as well and he did it well. But to me he’s more of an enforcer, I don’t see him playing at number five for the Springboks.

“With Lood de Jager and RG Snyman possibly out of contention for the Springboks, Franco Mostert will probably run the lineout. But as a back-up, Jason can definitely fill in for Eben Etzebeth at number four,” Matfield told The Citizen on Monday.

Matfield also believes the 122kg Jenkins will make the Bulls set-piece even stronger. White has a group of promising number five locks in his camp, but big bruisers with experience to fill the number four jersey are a bit thin on the ground. The other second-rowers in the Bulls squad are Ewan Coetzee, Jean Droste, Andries Ferreira, Sintu Manjezi, Walt Steenkamp, Wian Vosloo and Ruan Nortje.

“Jason is a great signing for the Bulls because last year their front row was really strong, but they perhaps needed that bit of extra bulk in the second row. They have one or two number five locks but they missed having an enforcer like Jenkins,” Matfield said.

WorldRugby may have this week opened a window for the Rugby Championship to take place in New Zealand between November 7 and December 12, but the situation is still far from ideal for South African participation. But commercial imperatives dictate that the Springboks simply have to find a way to get over there and play, otherwise SA Rugby will suffer devastating financial losses.

It is the Sanzaar competitions that bring in the bulk of South African rugby’s revenues and with SuperRugby having been scrapped after just half-a-dozen rounds, it is the Rugby Championship that needs to save the broadcast deals through providing some live content.

As SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux said recently, the Rugby Championship is a very expensive competition to run, but the broadcast revenues are significant enough that the commercial value compels Sanzaar to continue the event. The difference between revenues and expenses is the reason SA Rugby can use the Rugby Championship to cross-subsidise several other competitions.

One of those competitions is the Currie Cup, which used to be an event of industrial proportions in South African rugby, the envy of the world. Sadly SA Rugby has over the years allowed the jewel in their crown, their most valuable property after the Springboks, to fade into relative insignificance.

But the imminent demise of SuperRugby is likely to bring a resurgence in domestic competition and a Currie Cup style tournament this year is going to play a crucial role in the Springboks returning to action; hopefully that local action will continue to be a focus in 2021 and beyond.

Even though playing in Europe seems to be the big prize at the moment, and private equity investors in our franchises are already saying this is essential for them to get a return on their money, hopefully SA Rugby will still put energy and resources into having a strong purely local competition.

In the meantime, the top eight teams in South Africa are going to play a tournament later this year to at least get rugby back on the go locally. Apart from providing some content for SuperSport, who pour millions into the game, those eight teams are also going to play a vital role in getting the Springboks ready for action.

With New Zealand and Australia already back playing rugby for half-a-dozen weeks and South African players realistically only returning to action in mid-September, there have been understandable concerns expressed that the Springboks are going to be on a hiding to nothing if the Rugby Championship is played this year, being so far behind in terms of preparation. There have been angry mutters about their World Cup win being tarnished.

But the reality of the situation is that even if the Springboks are going to disappoint in terms of on-field results, they simply have to return to action and our television screens, it is a financial imperative. And they have played for financial reasons before, most recently when they lost to Wales in Washington in June 2018.

New Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has said a squad of 45 players are going to have to travel to New Zealand and quarantine before entering their bio-bubble, and there have even been complaints from local coaches that that will decimate their provincial squads. As is often the case in South African rugby, the unions are going to need a reminder that they are there to serve the national cause, any local competition this year is mostly about getting the Springboks ready for action.

Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos certainly knows the value of the Springbok brand and last weekend he was stressing the importance of them returning to international action before the end of the year. And as we saw at last year’s World Cup, in which they were certainly underdogs, the ability to rise above the obstacles in their path is a great property of the Springboks.

“By no means will the playing field be level, but the Springbok side have a deep, steely resolve, and I know Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber will optimise whatever time they have to be as competitive as possible,” Marinos said.

Nienaber says the players in the Springbok squad need at least six games beforehand in order to be able to play in the Rugby Championship. They are unlikely to get much more than six matches unless rugby somehow resumes later this month, but at least they will be going to New Zealand feeling fresh.

And there is a large gap between the Rugby Championship kicking off and the end of SuperRugby Aotearoa and SuperRugby Australia. The New Zealand competition ends on August 16, with no final, while the Australian final will be held on September 19. Whoever handles the double-edged sword of rust versus fatigue best will have a large advantage, and I wouldn’t write off the Springboks just yet.

Ever since leading the most transformed Springbok side yet to World Cup glory, Siya Kolisi has gone beyond being merely a sports star and has become a powerful symbol of change and unity in South Africa, so it was no surprise to hear SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux say the national captain has every right to express his opinion.

Roux was responding to questions over how SA Rugby would respond to Kolisi’s social media post this week in which he supported the Black Lives Matter movement and spoke of his difficulties in fitting in with the Springboks and their culture. He said his culture was not represented in the team and he felt he had to conform in order to be accepted. Kolisi added that “the next generation can’t suffer like we did”.

Kolisi also pointed out that World Cup-winning coach Rassie Erasmus had addressed the issues and transformed the Springbok team both in terms of personnel and environment.

“Siya is his own person and he got to where he did by himself and led us to the World Cup, so it’s not for me or anyone else to tell him what he must say. We must give people the opportunity to tell their stories, and people will either support or not support what they say, but that is always the case. Personally, I respect his comments.

“Black Lives Matter is basically about respect for others and how we treat people on a daily basis. That should be first and foremost, whether we are talking about BLM, Farm Attacks or Gender-Based Violence. We’ve seen that rugby can have an influence in society and we need to own up to those issues and not steer away from those conversations,” Roux said this week.

Roux made the call for more discussions over improving opportunities for Black people in the sport.

“Let Black people tell their stories and what’s more important is for us to listen and hear what they are saying. We must not shy away from awkward truths. We must continue dialogue and figure out together how to bring change. Is our transformation plan robust enough? These are very serious matters that transcend way beyond sport.

“Maybe some elements of our plan do need change, for example when it comes to Black coaches. Rassie has presented a plan to fast-track Black coaches and we need to look at that more seriously. I’m the first to acknowledge that things have gone wrong, even if we have made some very good progress in transformation. As a federation, rugby has been very good at acknowledging our sins of the past,” Roux said.

The fact that his previous two-year ban for doping has now been quadrupled to eight years for his next offence is something Chiliboy Ralepelle’s lawyers believe is grounds for an appeal, but the former Springbok hooker’s career is almost certainly over after the South African Institute for Drugs-Free Sport’s independent doping tribunal announced another guilty verdict on Wednesday.

The 33-year-old tested positive for the growth hormone Zeranol while with the Sharks in January 2019. It was his second doping offence after being banned for two years in September 2015 for use of an anabolic steroid, Drostanolone, while recovering from injury in France.

Ralepelle has actually tested positive on three occasions, with his initial brush with the law coming in 2010 when he and wing Bjorn Basson were found to have the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine in their systems after the Springboks had played Ireland in Dublin on an end-of-year tour. But they were only given a reprimand when a judicial hearing found that it was not their fault because it came from a tainted supplement provided by the South African Rugby Union.

So it seems Ralepelle’s legal team are set to argue that it is only his second doping offence.

“We have concluded that there are definitely grounds for appeal, but we are creatures of instruction and we will take those instructions from Ralepelle on how he wants to proceed. We are preparing an opinion for Ralepelle on whether, solely from a legal perspective, he should appeal.

“There is one example: Chiliboy was previously banned for two years and the WADA laws say that the second offence must be double the standard for the first offence. In that respect, from our legal view, from a two-year previous ban, it should have been a four-year ban at best and not an eight-year ban. But we are still considering the contents of the judgement,” legal representative Hendrik Hugo told ENCA on Wednesday.

A four-year ban for a second offence involving serious drugs would appear to be a light punishment, however, given that some first-time offenders, such as Welshman Owen Morgan in 2017, have been given four-year sentences.

Springbok wing Aphiwe Dyantyi is facing a four-year ban himself after testing positive for three different steroids last year. According to SAIDS, a virtual hearing to the 25-year-old’s case should be held in the next two months.

At the other end of the spectrum, former Swansea hooker Dean Colclough was banned for eight years in 2014 for possessing and distributing steroids.