Ken Borland

The Bulls will be targeting a bonus point win in Swansea on Friday night to give themselves the best chance of a home quarterfinal in the United Rugby Championship, but they will have to overcome an Ospreys side that has a strong territorial kicking game and a powerful pack of forwards to do that, and potentially rainy weather as well.

Ospreys will also be just as desperate to win as the Bulls, because defeat could cost them a place in the lucrative European Champions Cup as the winners of the Welsh Shield.

But while people tend to think of blazing counter-attacking backs as the ones to win a bonus point, White said it will take a complete team effort to secure the spoils in Swansea, starting up front.

“We’ve got to give everything to try and get a bonus point because even if we win, we could still finish sixth or seventh with just four log points,” White said on Thursday.

“People always look at players like Canan Moodie and Madosh Tambwe when it comes to x-factor and bonus points, but guys like Elrigh Louw and Cyle Brink, if someone puts them away in space or there is interplay between them, can also win the game for you.

“Jan-Hendrik Wessels or Embrose Papier coming off the bench can also do it. We need to find the ability to win in different ways.

“X-factor does not necessarily mean a sidestep and running 50 metres to score, it means finding a way to win. It’s about your combination as a group.

“Ospreys kick a lot, close to the most in URC, a lot of high balls and up-and-unders from the lineout. But David Kriel is a good high-ball catcher and he played very well against the Lions in the Currie Cup last weekend,” White said of the player he has brought in at wing to support Moodie at fullback.

But teams who win with a bonus point almost always start with dominance up front, and White warned the Bulls were coming up against a formidable pack.

“Eleven of the 33 players who will be touring South Africa in July come from Ospreys and seven of the forwards are playing for Wales. So we’re under no illusions that it’s going to be easy.

“Ospreys could have had more players picked too because there’s an outcry that eighthman Jac Morgan wasn’t chosen and people in Wales are saying Rhys Webb is the form scrumhalf.

“It’s easy to say ‘get a bonus point’, but both Ospreys locks are British Lions, Alun-Wyn Jones is one of the greatest Wales locks ever. It’s going to be a challenge for the whole pack.

“Then there’s the experience of George North at outside centre and Justin Tipuric. And Ospreys have a lot on the game as well. They may be ninth but they’ve won their last couple of games to come from nowhere,” White warned.

Bulls team: Canan Moodie, David Kriel, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Cyle Brink, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. IMPACT– Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Simphiwe Matanzima, Robert Hunt, Janko Swanepoel, Arno Botha; Embrose Papier, Juan Mostert, Stedman Gans.

Cricket South Africa Director of Cricket Graeme Smith on Saturday described all the leaks coming from the organisation – many of which have promoted falsehoods targeting him personally – as a “cancer” and said the e-mails he had sent to the Board complaining about them had not yet been addressed.

Smith has even had his contract details leaked to the media and there was also a fraudulent document circulated which alleged he was a shareholder in 3TCricket.

“These leaks are a cancer within the organisation and you just wonder who in a senior position would do this? What is their end goal? It’s clearly a high-profile person because of some of the stuff that has been leaked. This kind of thing doesn’t help build relations, it feels like some people have ulterior motives, so we end up spending all our time speaking about these things and not the game.

“I have written a few e-mails about it to the president [Chris Nenzani], the board and the company secretary [Welsh Gwaza], who has been part of all my processes. And there hasn’t been a huge response. But it was good to see the president put a few things straight in an article today and there are a lot of very good people in CSA, especially at staff level, in cricket services,” Smith said in a teleconference on Saturday.

While Smith defended his appointment as director of cricket, saying he had gone through the whole chain of appropriate processes, and was keen to continue in the role, he added that he would step aside if there was someone better equipped for the job. He also defended his choice of Mark Boucher as national coach.

“I feel I have been extremely unfairly targeted over the appointments, I feel there’s a bit of an agenda. It comes back to why I got into the job in the first place – I wanted to put cricket straight and improve CSA as an organisation – and CSA courted me for a while. I went through the interview process and initially turned the job down. But in the absolute chaos of last December I decided I wanted to be part of the solution.

“I don’t feel like I’m going to be perfect or not get anything wrong, but my intentions and value system are good. But if someone can do a better job then they must tell me. I did not appoint myself, I went through a rigorous interview process presided over by mainly Black African people. You ask yourself what you can achieve in this role, but that’s why I decided to sign an extension to my contract.

“In terms of Mark Boucher, the team need a strong leader and he’s done enough coaching at domestic level and had a lot of success, his personality and experience is what was needed. He and Enoch Nkwe [assistant coach] can form a strong partnership, that’s an important dynamic. They are the right team to take the Proteas forward … theoretical qualifications are not the be-all and end-all,” Smith said.

It took some daring for Smith to accept the post of director of cricket back in December and South Africa’s most successful captain described CSA as being in “chaos” at the time.

“I fearfully got involved in December in a situation that was chaos, absolute chaos, there was zero trust between anyone. There’s still an element of internal agendas pulling in a lot of different directions and I would like to align those. Life was a lot simpler as a broadcaster! But I was sad to see South African cricket fall from its perch, that’s why I got involved.

“It’s feeling chaotic again, so I keep revisiting why I took the job in the first place. But you ask yourself lots of questions – What are the motives? What is the end game? What are these people trying to create because in the end it’s only the game that suffers. But I was captain for a long time so I have formulated ways of dealing with the stresses and public pressures of a high-profile job,” Smith said.

While Smith’s decision to take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement during the 3TCricket Solidarity Cup went down like a flat beer with those of a right-wing persuasion, the director of cricket said he did it to show he is serious about creating a South African cricket culture in which everyone can feel comfortable.

“The BLM movement provided the opportunity for everyone to have an open discussion before the Solidarity Cup, which is why we all decided to take a knee, to show solidarity to creating a better environment going forward. We’ve got to create a culture where everyone feels safe to talk. I was most surprised that players did not feel they had a voice in the past. “As far as I was aware, there have always been channels, but obviously these players did not feel that way, so hopefully we can improve on that. I was very taken aback by Makhaya Ntini’s stuff. When I came into the team, I never thought of him as being the silent type, he was a senior player then. He gave me a different explanation when I asked him about running to the ground and not taking the bus,” Smith said.

The thrilling Kagiso Rabada stole the show at the CSA Awards this week by claiming most of the trophies for himself with the same ruthlessness he displays in targeting the batsman’s wicket, but the most memorable performance by a fast bowler, for me, came the night before at the 25 Years of Unity celebration when Vincent Barnes spoke movingly about the challenges he had to face as a cricketer whose career was ruined by Apartheid.

Barnes is currently the high performance manager for Cricket South Africa, having previously served for many years as the national team’s bowling coach. But he was also arguably the greatest cricketer in the non-racial ranks during the decade before 1991’s formation of the United Cricket Board and the return to international cricket.

The pitches were notoriously poor on their side of the divide – the Apartheid government certainly wasn’t bothered with providing facilities for the majority back then – but Barnes’ figures stand head and shoulders above everyone else in his generation: 323 wickets at an average of just 11.95!

The injustices of Apartheid meant Barnes had to work doubly hard just to play cricket and the passion he has for the game overcame the fact that there was no higher outlet for his talents. But the 56-year-old has seldom spoken of those frustrations – unlike some of the privileged set who were denied international cricket due to isolation – and instead focused on passing on his knowledge to the new, unified generation of South African cricketers.

The greats of White cricket were also acknowledged at the celebration, but it was Barnes’ story of overcoming the odds which was the most poignant for me.

As good as the awards dinner was the next evening, the shadow of sports minister Fikile Mbalula’s enormous ego and Donald Trump-like “leadership” did hang over it a bit for me. I am sad that Cricket South Africa’s response to the increase in pressure from the sports minister for a faster transformation pace, purely intended to put the spotlight on himself in this election year, has been to kowtow to a man who is all bluster and no positive action.

First we had HD Ackerman shamefully removed from the hosting duties because he is taking up a job in Australia (Derek Alberts did a fine job standing in), and then the announcement that quotas will be formally introduced at national level. At least that ends the dishonest sham that resulted in disasters like last year’s World Cup semifinal.

As if to really drive home the point that CSA have worked harder on transformation than any other code, Rabada then takes home half-a-dozen awards.

What was miserable Mbalula’s response? – a tweet that read “Congratulatons! Kagiso Rabada, I sincerely believe you not gonna disappear after being used like all others who came bfo”.

The four franchises in Sunfoil Series action from today are all disappointingly depleted due to the withdrawal of the Proteas and the South Africa A squad, but the bizhub Highveld Lions are targeting this weekend as a crucial time in their quest for their first four-day title.

The Lions are second on the log, just 2.72 points behind the Titans, who are not in action this weekend, and victory over the Nashua Cape Cobras in Potchefstroom will put them in prime position as the competition nears the halfway mark.

Lions coach Geoff Toyana is missing seven frontline players, but most of the replacements are well-versed in franchise cricket and he is aiming high against the defending champions.

“It’s always tough missing players, but I’m happy with the depth we have and we still have quite an experienced top six. This is a big game for us, it will define our season this competition. We beat the Cobras at Newlands in our last game, so our confidence is high and I just hope our skills match that,” Toyana told The Citizen yesterday.

Gulam Bodi, Dale Deeb, Vusi Mazibuko, Pumelela Matshikwe, Sean Jamison and Devon Conway are the players called up by the Lions, while the Cobras also have a host of players excluded by national commitments or injury.

Cobras coach Paul Adams has, however, been able to call on players from his RamSlam T20 Challenge winning team like Sybrand Engelbrecht, Dane Paterson, Lizaad Williams and George Linde, while much is expected of two players from the Western Province side – batsman Keegan Petersen and all-rounder Shaheen Khan.

Adams said he is looking for more partnerships from his top-order batsmen as the Cobras aim for their first win in their third match this season.

The Dolphins have made a strong start to the competition with 27.08 points from two games and they travel to East London to take on the struggling Warriors.

The Warriors have probably been the least affected by national call-ups with just Simon Harmer and Wayne Parnell unavailable and the Eastern Cape side have called up Border off-spinner Gionne Koopman, while the pace bowling duties will be in the hands of Andrew Birch, Basheer Walters and Aya Gqamane.

The healthy covering of grass on the Buffalo Park pitch will test the Dolphins, who have lost three key batsmen in Morne van Wyk, David Miller and Khaya Zondo, while bowling spearhead Kyle Abbott is also unavailable.