Ken Borland

Springbok tighthead prop Marcel van der Merwe began his professional rugby career at the Free State Cheetahs in 2011 and would play alongside and scrum against a strong but raw loosehead from Limpopo by the name of Trevor Nyakane.

In 2013 Van der Merwe joined the Blue Bulls and made his Super Rugby debut for them the following year. Nyakane followed the Welkom-born, Paarl Boys’ High School educated tighthead to Pretoria, with Van der Merwe then leaving for Toulon in June 2016.

The 29-year-old Van der Merwe will now return to the Bulls after four years in France and he will find Nyakane has not only switched to tighthead prop but become an integral part of both the Bulls and Springbok teams. There will be competition aplenty now for what new Bulls coach Jake White has called the most important position in the team, and Nyakane welcomes it.

Not only because it will push the 31-year-old to even greater heights but it will also help manage his workload. Nyakane had very little respite in last year’s Super Rugby competition, starting every single game, all 17 of them. Eventually all that physical strain adds up and it may have played a role in his unfortunate departure from the 2019 World Cup, after tearing a calf muscle in the second half of the opening game against the All Blacks.

“I played with Marcel at both Free State and the Bulls and I know the type of player he is, so it’s going to be amazing to have him in the squad. We can now look at alternating at tighthead, it’s always great to be able to do that, but you also want to play of course. But it’s really difficult in a full season to play every game,” Nyakane told The Citizen at the One Cup of Pap Feeding Scheme, alongside fellow World Cup winners John Smit and Joel Stransky, who were also helping to hand out food parcels.

White has been quick to make changes at the Bulls and Nyakane said it will be exciting times when the squad finally gets together again after Lockdown. “It’s always exciting having a new coach to change things up a bit and I look forward to meeting up with Jake and everyone else when we go back to Loftus. The coach has obviously been bulking up the squad, which only makes it easier to rotate and manage players, and to have fresh blood coming in will be a positive,” Nyakane said.

By all accounts (and there have been many in the last week), Pat Lambie enjoyed a very good international career, playing 56 Tests, going to two World Cups and scoring 153 points for the Springboks. But there are many excellent judges who believe South African rugby still never got as much out of the Sharks flyhalf as they should have.

Despite a fine record of delivering when it mattered most, as well as performing at a level of consistency that all the great flyhalves have, Lambie only made 22 starts for the Springboks and was seldom given a decent run of games in which to establish himself. In fact, Lambie only once started five Tests in a row and that was at fullback in 2011, from the last two games of the Rugby Championship through the World Cup.

In his favoured position of flyhalf, Lambie never played more than three games on the trot in the number 10 jersey, on the end-of-year European tours of 2012 and 2014.

“Pat was an exceptional rugby player and as the dust settles on his premature retirement and people reflect back, I think many will realise he was the one that got away. No Springbok coach really made him his number one, nailed his flag to the mast and said Pat is my number one flyhalf. But we saw it in Super Rugby and Currie Cup finals that Pat was at his best in important games.

“He wasn’t picked consistently enough, even though he never let the side down, and then they moved him between fullback and flyhalf when he should have just been at flyhalf. It’s a great pity and it was disappointing, I know Dick Muir always said we must just put him in and play him when we were assistants together with the Springboks,” current USA coach Gary Gold, a member of the Springboks’ coaching team from 2008-2011 and head coach of the Sharks between 2014-2016, told Saturday Citizen.

As former Springbok captain and inside centre Jean de Villiers attests, Lambie was the sort of player a coach and team could rely on week after week.

“Pat would always just get the job done, he had that ability to perform under pressure, as that massive kick against the All Blacks showed. He was a fantastic player and his personality came through on the field in that he stayed calm in the big moments. He was the biggest gentleman in world rugby but he still performed with authority, he could leave his mark on the game.

“He was the sort of flyhalf who could dominate and control the game. I’ll never forget the 2010 Currie Cup final and his brilliant performance against us [Western Province] that showed his class. On two end-of-year tours we played 10 and 12 next to each other and we only lost one game, showing that Pat could really get the job done in difficult conditions,” De Villiers said.

And yet Heyneke Meyer, the Springbok coach who took over in 2012, binned Lambie to the bench at the start of the 2013 international season and again for the 2015 Rugby Championship.

Meyer has spoken warmly this week about his appreciation for Lambie’s talents and his personality in the team space, but he did perhaps let slip why he was reluctant to fully trust Lambie.

“As we all know, he wasn’t the biggest rugby player ever [1.77m, 86kg], but he had a serious all-round game and that included a very solid tackle and commitment. He would put his body on the line 100% of the time, never shied away from the contact side of things, and was safe under a high ball as well.

“Pat is way up there with the best talents I ever coached, but I will say this without any doubt at all: there was no better human being in my Bok squads. Wherever he has gone in the world professionally, he has quickly come to be considered one of the most likeable guys in the fold. I never coached a guy with better manners than him,” Meyer told Sport24.

That Lambie is a top-class human being is a recurring theme when speaking to people who know him well. Former Springbok captain Gary Teichmann had a different relationship with the Michaelhouse product as CEO of the Sharks, but is just as effusive in his praise.

“Pat is a guy with incredible ability but easy to deal with. He says it as it is, there’s never an angle with him, and it was always a very easy conversation with him – he’s all about honesty and transparency,” Teichmann said.

But more than that, he was a phenomenal rugby player, with the well-travelled Gold comparing him to a legend of the game like Jonny Wilkinson.

“Pat was potentially our Jonny Wilkinson, he probably has the same dimensions and Joel Stransky and Dan Carter were also not the biggest flyhalves. What Wilkinson did for England, I believe Pat could have done for South Africa because he’s a similar player and personality,” Gold said.

https://citizen.co.za/sport/south-african-sport/sa-rugby-sport/2072068/the-inconvenient-truth-about-pat-lambie/

A quick question, if you will.
When did the position of Springbok captain become downgraded to one in which the office-bearer is not allowed to speak on matters of major national interest, especially in terms of rugby?
The furore that has greeted Siya Kolisi’s comments on transformation and quotas has been rife with suggestions that it is not his place to talk about such matters.
Which is absolute nonsense.
I would far rather listen to Kolisi’s views on the subject because he is most affected by it; as a player he is at the coalface of the whole transformation debate. I would far rather listen to Kolisi, surely the embodiment of what transformation hopes to achieve, than either a politician, who lies most of the time and is unwilling to actually do the hard work required to change our society, or an administrator, who in this country is generally self-serving and sadly divorced from the realities of professional sport.
It’s typical of our easily distracted political discourse that everyone has focused on Kolisi’s comments about Nelson Mandela not supporting quotas. It’s not a viewpoint I agree with, my recollection of the 1990s being that Mandela certainly supported efforts to ensure all-White teams did not represent South Africa anymore.
But it’s not the most important thing Kolisi was saying. With respect to the late great Madiba, who did more for sports unity in this country than anyone, his views on quotas are really not relevant anymore. Our society, by and large, has changed so much.
And yet the demographics of our national teams (excluding football) still don’t really reflect this. And it’s because of the other, way more important, issues that Kolisi raised.
It’s hard to believe sometimes when you see the super-athlete that Kolisi has become, and how inspiring and authoritative a figure he is when speaking, that he grew up in poverty. Taking the big hits on a rugby field is probably nothing compared to the feelings of hunger and hopelessness he must have felt before rugby so dramatically changed his life.
Kolisi mentions in his interview with Kyodo News that if he hadn’t have been given a bursary to Grey High in Port Elizabeth he would never have been a professional rugby player, never mind Springbok captain.
South African sport – and especially our rapaciously opportunistic politicians and administrators – owes our Model C schools a tremendous debt of gratitude because they have mostly been driving transformation ever since the 1990s.
Which brings us to the crux of Kolisi’s comments. He is one of the fortunate few to be given the opportunity to fulfil his God-given talent and he made the most of it through tremendous hard work and strength of character. But what of the millions of other township kids who are lost?
One cannot expect them to compete on a level playing field when they are struggling for regular meals, they have no facilities and even getting to practices and games is a major issue.
This is where transformation should be focused and not on the numbers that are so beloved by two-faced, box-ticking politicians and administrators.
It is a sad fact though that many White South Africans have a tough time rating Black players fairly, and Kolisi will no doubt be aware that there are some who believe he is not worthy of his place in the Springbok team.
To blindly stick to a quota system and to not concentrate efforts on ensuring there is a level playing field – equal opportunity – all through the pipeline, is only going to feed into that sort of bigotry.
Our Black sportspeople don’t need quotas to make it; they just need fair opportunity and a level playing field. But that’s going to take hard work from our grandstanding politicians and administrators.

There was nothing logical about the Springboks’ epic victory over the All Blacks in Wellington last weekend: their recent form and that of their opponents certainly didn’t suggest it and neither did South Africa’s miserable record at The Cake Tin, where they had lost all six previous matches against New Zealand. The match statistics were thoroughly dominated by the home side, who outscored the Boks by six tries to five.

And, unusually when I get to watch the Springboks in a non-working capacity, there wasn’t a beer or a braai in sight when I settled down to watch the TV broadcast. That’s because I was watching in a shopping mall (not maul) of all places.

The occasion was one of those “events” that marketing people are so fond of, but this one was memorable, not just because the long nine-year wait for a Springbok win in New Zealand came to an end. I remember thinking, shortly before those excruciating final minutes when the world’s best referee, Nigel Owens, lost his composure as much as anyone, that this had been one of my most enjoyable Springboks-on-TV viewing experiences ever.

I know this next bit will be met with as much disbelief in some quarters as the revelation that I did not have a beer the entire match, but I was also the only White person at the gathering.

In terms of the demographics of the country, it is logical that last weekend’s Fine Leg Productions event with the Gwijo Squad and Touch Rugby Sundays shows what the future of rugby in this country will be like. And what a bright future it is judging by the sheer passion on display, the knowledgeable comments and the tremendous spirit that led to a wonderful atmosphere, even when many of us were cursing Owens under our breath.

I have watched rugby in many establishments in the supposed rugby heartland and felt way less comfortable in a testosterone-fuelled atmosphere and way less impressed by the knowledge of the game that was on display. Several women attended the Fine Leg Productions event and seemed totally at home.

And imagine how much harder it is for these rugby-loving Black fans to feel comfortable in some of our stadiums? This was one of the issues raised after the match in the discussion that was held and it is also central to the creation of the Gwijo Squad.

They are a group of rugby-mad Springbok followers who are transforming the stadium vibe by singing and chanting vernacular war cries and their efforts to inculcate a more inclusive culture have been mirrored at Springbok level. It has been hard for Black Springboks to feel totally comfortable in that environment, to feel that they can bring their own culture into the team, but that has all changed with the appointment of Siya Kolisi as captain. Now we see the team singing traditional songs before and after the game and it is wonderful to behold this new, all-South African culture taking hold.

With so much focus now on the economics of our rugby – the viability of our professional structures and how we are struggling to compete with overseas teams because of the weakness of the rand – it is definitely necessary for the sport to be open to as many communities as possible. In order for that to really take off, those communities have to feel wanted and truly part of South African rugby.

A term like “rugby development” is perhaps not the best word to use because it implies creating an interest that is not already there. Contrary to what All Blacks coach Steve Hansen may believe, judging by the extracts of his book published this week, rugby has also been a Black sport for more than a century.

Perhaps the Gwijo Squad can arrange to take Hansen, when he is here in the first week of October, on a little tour of the Eastern Cape, where Black clubs are more than a hundred years old and rugby poles are seen in the rural areas far more often than soccer goals.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180922/282720522881060