Ken Borland

Lukhanyo Am has a sense of gravitas in his bearing and is the defensive organiser of the Springbok backline, but one gets the feeling that inside that sturdy 98kg frame there is a playful youngster who just wants to throw the ball around and show his considerable skills.

But Test rugby is serious business and Am reiterated the statements of other members of the Springbok camp this week when he said they have to avoid falling into the trap of trying to play too much rugby against the All Blacks on Saturday, while also ensuring they are full of energy on defence.

“We created a lot of opportunities but we just didn’t convert because we did not execute properly. We had a great start to the second half, but soon we were behind again and there was scoreboard pressure. It felt like we were chasing the game or trying to rush things. And then the passes just don’t stick, you look a bit flustered, but it’s purely scoreboard pressure.

“We are fully focused though on bouncing back and rectifying the mistakes of the previous two Tests. If we stick to our processes then hopefully we will get the result. Defence is also one of our strengths, but last weekend we lacked a bit of energy. We don’t need to change anything in our plan, the missed tackles were just individual errors and not the system’s fault,” the 27-year-old Am said.

The outside centre scored South Africa’s only try last weekend against Australia, getting on the end of scrumhalf Faf de Klerk’s neat grubber in the 42^nd minute. It gave the Springboks the lead (17-15) for the first time in the match, but they were the last points the visitors would score in Brisbane.

Saturday’s Townsville Test promises a really interesting midfield battle. Rieko Ioane first broke through at international level on the wing and David Havili played most of his rugby at fullback for the Canterbury Crusaders. They have been fill-ins at centre for the likes of Jack Goodhue and Anton Lienert-Brown, but have certainly put themselves in the mix to continue together as New Zealand prepare for the 2023 World Cup.

Am and De Allende have built a formidable partnership through winning the Rugby Championship and the World Cup in 2019 and beating the British and Irish Lions earlier this year. They were regarded as the leading combination in world rugby, but their mediocre showings over the last two weekends suddenly saw former All Blacks coach Laurie Mains describe them as  being “simply not up to Test level”.

Really?! Either the 75-year-old Mains has not watched any other Springbok games over the last two years or dementia is setting in.

Bulls coach Jake White certainly seems to have located his best starting XV and there is little doubt it is the side that will run out on to Kings Park on Saturday evening to play the Sharks in a Currie Cup thriller.

Barring Marnus Potgieter making his Currie Cup starting debut on the right wing that is. The 21-year-old is promoted from the bench because Travis Ismaiel is unable to fill the vacancy created by David Kriel moving back to fullback because he has just had a shoulder operation. Potgieter is 1.87 metres tall, weighs 94kg and played twice for the Blue Bulls in the 2018 SuperSport Rugby Challenge.

“Marnus has been a great junior player, he was at Affies and a member of the 4×100 metre relay team and has come through the ranks here at Loftus. He has lots of pace and he’s big and strong,” White said.

Apart from Ismaiel, all the familiar faces are back as White also moved Kurt-Lee Arendse back to left wing, Ivan van Zyl returns at scrumhalf, Ruan Nortje will start again in the second row and Trevor Nyakane and Jacques van Rooyen are the starting props.

Springbok Marcel van der Merwe, the tighthead who was replaced after 34 minutes against the Free State Cheetahs last weekend, is nowhere to be found on the bench though. White said he still has faith though in the 30-year-old even though 22-year-old Mornay Smith will be the replacement tighthead against the Sharks.

“We still back Marcel and we will help him through it, he had a long-term injury and has not played much rugby. I’m not going to discard him, we will help him back on the horse. Maybe the Free State loosehead prop was able to get away with a bit, there’s been lots of debate about that,” White said.

The former Springbok coach did however praise the influence of Nyakane both on and off the field.

“Marcel will come right and Trevor almost did the same things as Marcel and we got rewarded, so I’m just thankful that referee Jaco Peyper is good enough and experienced enough to see the whole picture. There’s a misconception that we took off our tighthead because he was struggling, but it was because we wanted the loosehead to try and do the same things to Trevor.

“It’s not as if Trevor came on and waved a wand, but he showed stability and the players around him obviously get confidence from that. I haven’t worked with Trevor before but he’s been really good both on and off the field – right now he’s having one-on-ones with young Jan-Hendrik Wessels on loosehead versus tighthead,” White said.

Bulls team: David Kriel, Marnus Potgieter, Stedman Gans, Cornal Hendricks, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Morné Steyn, Ivan van Zyl, Duane Vermeulen (capt), Arno Botha, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Trevor Nyakane, Johan Grobbelaar, Jacques van Rooyen. Bench – Schalk Erasmus, Gerhard Steenekamp, Mornay Smith, Sintu Manjezi, Nizaam Carr, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Marco Jansen van Vuren.

Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa has already accepted that there is no way Cricket South Africa will be able to hold their AGM on December 5, but that does not mean the new interim board of directors he announced on Friday are there for a holiday.

Mthethwa tasked the interim board with completing their mandate within three months, although he did leave the door open for their term of office to be extended.

“The interim board need to hit the ground running and deal with the current governance and structural issues. They should aim to implement the Nicholson Commission recommendations, consider the Fundudzi Forensic Report and take the recommended action or whatever action they deem to be appropriate, review all board decisions made since 2019 and restore the integrity and reputation of CSA.

“They have three months to do this, but that may be extended based on their progress. We hope they will deliver because this group knows exactly what it has to do and the Members Council still has an obligation to ensure their work is moving well. But there is no way December 5 can remain as the date for their AGM, which could have been avoided if certain people had listened earlier,” Mthethwa said on Friday.

The new interim board of directors is chaired by Judge Zak Yacoob, a former justice of the Constitutional Court, and includes other ‘independent’ figures in Caroline Mampuru, the deputy head of the Special Investigative Unit, Stavros Nicolaou, a senior executive for a major pharmaceutical company, and Andile Dawn Mbatha, the chief financial officer of the Independent Electoral Commission.

But a trio of passionate cricket-lovers who have gone to town in recent times in their criticism of the organisation and the recently-resigned board have also found accommodation on the interim board.

The most astonishing appointment is that of Haroon Lorgat, who has been at the forefront of CSA’s critics and was the federation’s chief executive as recently as September 2017, before being deposed by the power bloc that included Thabang Moroe, whose tenure and subsequent suspension and firing have been central to CSA’s governance crisis. But Lorgat is an internationally-respected administrator who is a former CEO of the International Cricket Council and CSA was a stable organisation during his watch.

Omphile Ramela, the president of the South African Cricketers Association, has also been a strident critic of CSA on behalf of the players, while Judith February is a lawyer and governance expert for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Institute for Security Studies, as well as a respected columnist who has also expressed her dismay over the administration of a sport she is clearly passionate about.

Andre Odendaal, the former CEO of the Western Province Cricket Association and the Cape Cobras, is another appointee, who has had a long history in the game as a first-class player, administrator and historian.

There is also a member of the old guard on the interim board in Xolani Vonya, the recently-resigned Easterns president who has been a strong supporter of both Moroe and company secretary Welsh Gwaza, who has been seen as a stumbling block to change at the organisation.

Vonya has been a controversial figure because the Easterns union have been wanting to get rid of him for many months, including holding a vote of no confidence against him, but Moroe and Gwaza gave him legal support to fight his removal.

There is a massive irony in a body such as Sascoc, wracked by internal strife and lacking credibility, making an intervention in the affairs of Cricket South Africa, a federation that seems to daily provide a new definition of rock-bottom.

But one can only hope this is a rocket (a spark would have little effect on the thick-skinned people sitting on the CSA Board) that leads to a real shift in the mindsets of those arrogant directors that refuse to budge a centimetre from a place at the top table of a sport they have parasitized rather than served.

If Sascoc threatening to take over does not force the CSA Board into standing down and releasing the Fundudzi Forensic Report, then the next option has to be for them to be threatened with being declared delinquent directors. There have been a litany of governance disasters at CSA over the last couple of years and there is no way they can continue to deny their own involvement and culpability.

There is no doubt people like former CEO Thabang Moroe and company secretary Welsh Gwaza have been involved in malfeasance, but who appointed and enabled these self-serving charlatans? The directors did and they have failed in their fiduciary duties, which have a clear legal basis.

The Members Council and the CSA Board of Directors are meeting together in Johannesburg over the weekend and, as one delegate put it, this is “make-or-break” time for the organisation. Will selfish, individualistic priorities prevail and continue the death spiral into chaos and oblivion? Or will there finally be some leadership and accountability shown?

Either way, Sascoc are going to impose a task team inquiring into CSA’s affairs, which is no bad thing. But if leadership and accountability win the day then there are enough top-class people who love cricket who will be able to step into the leadership vacuum and help CSA back to stability.

One of those is Judith February, a lawyer based at the Institute for Security Studies, the former head of IDASA’s governance programme, a Visiting Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and a massive cricket fan.

“You cannot be on a board and not take responsibility, resigning just before the AGM is too little, too late because they have presided over matters to that point. Directors have left in silence or written letters, but it was because they did not flex their muscles that Thabang Moroe was allowed to operate in that way. CSA’s Memorandum of Incorporation is very clear and they have breached it on every front.

“We can join the dots intelligently and see that there is something deeply wrong with the system and the people who manage it and the people who oversee them. A clean break is the best option and clearly we need to interrogate why someone of such integrity and capability as Jacques Faul could find no space to work in CSA. The players’ statement about the boardroom shenanigans was also really important,” February said this week in a Daily Maverick webinar discussing cricket in South Africa’s fight for survival.

Does February, a governance specialist and former executive director of the HSRC’s Democracy and Governance unit, not just sound like the perfect candidate to be an independent director on a new-look CSA Board?

There are also some brilliant, impressive people on the Members Council – one thinks of Ben Dladla, Craig Nel, Anne Vilas and Tebogo Siko – who are dong their best to restore the credibility of CSA, but their efforts are being stymied by the presence of seven directors of the Board in the 14-strong Members Council itself.

The Nicholson Inquiry, which the CSA Board have now committed to return to eight years after its release, called for change in how the Board was constituted, recommending nine of the 12 directors be independents.

But in 2013 it was the selfsame Sascoc who refused to accept that and pressured CSA (although it probably suited their Board back then too) into going with a 7-5 split in favour of non-independents. And that’s a major reason why CSA are in the mess they are in now.

Directors without the competence, skills or experience to run a billion-and business have been voted in to ensure certain powerful figures enjoy support and can dispense patronage in return. In some cases, these directors have been earning twice as much from Board fees as from their ‘main’ source of income; no wonder they are desperate to keep their noses in the CSA trough.

In the coming weeks, Sascoc have a vital role to play in supporting the efforts of those who want to change this system and put cricket back in the control of people who firstly love and serve the game, and secondly have the expertise to run it properly.