Ken Borland

Bulls coach Jake White has refused to release an injury report this week ahead of their SuperRugby Unlocked opener against Griquas at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night, and the reason became clear on Thursday when he announced a team missing several of the stars from their impressive warm-up against the Sharks a fortnight ago.

White has decided not to risk the “niggling” injuries captain Duane Vermeulen, dazzling new wing Kurt-Lee Arendse and experienced loose forward Nizaam Carr have suffered and he has also been shorn of the services of hooker Schalk Erasmus for six weeks, after surgery on a twisted ankle.

So flank Arno Botha, who has made an impressive return to South African rugby, will lead the team against Griquas and Tim Agaba will start at eighthman. The tall David Kriel looked a threat when he came on in the second half against the Sharks and he will replace Arendse at left wing, while the Bulls have good cover at hooker with Corniel Els starting and the exciting young Johan Grobbelaar on the bench.

“Duane has a bang on the leg from last week’s Springbok Showdown and he’ll be fine, but with us playing for five weeks in a row we cannot afford to risk him pushing through. We can afford to give other guys opportunity though and it’s a great chance to see how Tim, who everyone speaks highly of, goes along with the first-choice pack.

“Kurt-Lee is also injured, he has a contusion on his quad and for someone who needs to run a lot, that’s a risk. He’ll be ready next week. Schalk has had an operation on an ankle roll and we know he’ll be ready in six weeks, whereas if we’d treated it conservatively it could reoccur. Nizaam has a bang on his knee so I couldn’t pick him.

“All the teams seem to have a lot of niggles because of the lack of rugby and contact. I suppose I could pick these guys if I really wanted to, but we can’t afford it with our schedule if they have niggles. That’s why I don’t want to give my injury report on a Monday because then the opposition then basically knows my team at the start of the week and I wanted to see if some of these guys could pull through,” White said on Thursday.

The one area where White has taken something of a risk is at tighthead prop, however, with Trevor Nyakane chosen despite spending the week in Cape Town in quarantine because he had been in close proximity with fellow Springbok Oupa Mohoje, who has tested positive for Covid-19.

“Trevor had a training program in Cape Town and he’s been able to stick to that. Of course it’s not ideal that he hasn’t trained with us, but he’s a Springbok and important to us. He knows how we play, he’s been at every session except the last two weeks. We’ll start with him and then if he gets fatigued then we can bring the reserve [Mornay Smith] on,” White explained.

Grobbelaar has recently got over his own struggle with Covid-19 and with Lizo Gqoboka recovered from injury and starting loosehead Jacques van Rooyen having arrived at the Bulls and impressed, the Pretoria side have plenty of front-row experience for a clash in which the first battle will be up front.

Team – Gio Aplon, Travis Ismaiel, Stedman Gans, Cornal Hendricks, David Kriel, Morne Steyn, Ivan van Zyl, Tim Agaba, Arno Botha, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Jason Jenkins, Trevor Nyakane, Corniel Els, Jacques van Rooyen. Replacements: Johan Grobbelaar, Lizo Gqoboka, Mornay Smith, Sintu Manjezi, Elrigh Louw, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Marco Jansen van Vuren.

The differing domestic circumstances of the Proteas women’s squad meant some of them had done no cricket-related work since the beginning of Lockdown in March when they arrived at their training camp in Pretoria, but coach Hilton Moreeng said on Friday that he is happy with the intensity shown this week.

A high performance squad of 24 was named to gather at the University of Pretoria for a skills-based training camp that ended on Friday. The Proteas were last on a cricket field 143 days previously when they were narrow losers to hosts Australia in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup.

“The last time we were together was at the World Cup so we needed to get back into the swing of things. The camp went well, even though the environment is now totally different, there’s a new normal, which we realise and are slowly getting used to. We needed to press the reset button and if our tour to England happens in September then we need to know we’re ready and can hit the ground running.

“We needed to see where the players’ skills are. For some of them it was the first time they have picked up a bat since the World Cup because not all of them had the facilities to train properly. But I was very happy with the intensity I saw, that was good to see for our preparation for a possible tour and the upcoming 50-over World Cup. We needed to assess where the squad is and get everyone in the right frame of mind,” Moreeng said on Friday.

Moreeng was assisted by Dillon du Preez, the former Knights pace bowler, and the head coach, who still has to finalise his assistants, said he was impressed by his work.

Proteas vice-captain Chloe Tryon, who has been signed again by the Hobart Hurricanes for the Women’s Big Bash in Australia, said by focusing on the basics she has come out of the week-long camp happy with her progress.

“I just went back to basics in all aspects – batting, bowling and fielding – because it’s been a while since I played. So I just tried to keep it pretty simple and not just jump right in. I wanted to make sure that I mastered that first and my skills are now pretty good,” Tryon 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.

The country’s rugby players may have returned to training this week but planning for them to actually play competitive matches is not getting any easier with Jurie Roux, the CEO of SA Rugby, confirming on Tuesday that there is “about zero chance” of South Africa hosting any international rugby this year.

And the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to deeply affect the 2021 rugby calendar as well, necessitating major changes in local rugby. Roux did reiterate though that SA Rugby are still hopeful that they will be able to return to play at least by mid-September with local competitions.

“It is still a very fluid situation and there are multiple factors feeding into our daily decisions. But if anyone thinks we are going to return to a format that is close to what existed before this pandemic then they are making a big mistake. The market has corrected itself, it was due a change and it has been brought on by Covid. Rugby will be significantly different, we are trying to prepare for 2020/21 but everything else is in flux.

“There are no plans to host any international games this year because there is about zero chance of entrance into South Africa with our borders closed. The only chance of playing international rugby is in the New Zealand bubble in the Rugby Championship. The broadcast revenue from the Rugby Championship is significant and international rugby will hopefully resume towards the end of October, whatever we can fit in before mid-December,” Roux told an online media conference on Tuesday. a

International travel is not expected to return to normal until midway through next year and quarantine requirements are also squeezing the calendar, and while Roux said SuperRugby was not dead after New Zealand expressed their preference for a trans-Tasman competition with Australia, SA Rugby are hard-pressed to find space for a cross-conference competition before the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa kicks off in early July.

“They stated their preferred structure due to restrictions and the costs of travel with fewer flights to New Zealand, and there is every indication that ourselves and Argentina will not be able to go there without spending two weeks in quarantine until the end of May, so the previous format of SuperRugby is just not viable. So New Zealand will play domestically first and then hopefully we can have some sort of crossover SuperRugby.

“So the plan is for us to play domestically from February to April and if the borders are opened then we can have some sort of format across conferences, with Argentina most likely with us. But it all needs to finish by the time the British & Irish Lions tour starts in the first week of July. We are all part of the Sanzaar joint venture and there are legal agreements in place,” Roux said.