Ken Borland

There is an old rugby cliche that defence shows the character and unity of a team, and the Bulls must be a tight-knit family indeed judging by the great defensive display they produced in beating Connacht 28-14 in their United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

While the Bulls did some good things on attack, two of their four tries coming from offensive moves, it was their defence – smart, physical and untiring – that was the outstanding feature of their play.

Connacht only managed to breach the swarming Bulls defence after referee Andrea Piardi had given the home side their third yellow card. The three naughty kids were Marco van Staden, Johan Goosen and Jan-Hendrik Wessels, and all of them were for offences deemed to have occurred in the tackle, whether dangerous, high or late.

Clearly the Bulls’ defensive steel was a bit too intimidating for the referee.

Connacht were also unable to make the most of their possession thanks to the Bulls’ excellent efforts at the breakdown, where the likes of Van Staden, hookers Johan Grobbelaar and Wessels, and flank Marcell Coetzee were scavenging like a pack of hungry hyenas.

Captain Coetzee gave his usual industrial-strength display of power, muscling over for an important try on the stroke of halftime that put the Bulls 21-0 up at the break.

They had scored their first two tries in the first 10 minutes, the defensive pressure leading to an early dropped pass which was snapped up by fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse, who ran 75 metres to score; three minutes later, flyhalf Goosen kept a couple of defenders busy before putting Cornal Hendricks in the gap, Canan Moodie’s mazy run was stopped inside the 22, lock Walt Steenkamp was held up just short, but scrumhalf Zak Burger then went over for the try.

The Bulls scored their fourth and final try when centre David Kriel delayed his pass beautifully to put lock Ruan Nortje through the hole, from where Burger was found in support, roaring over for his second try, and the Bulls’ last, six minutes into the second half.

In between the tries, the Bulls had to show great industry in defence, especially since the referee’s whistle was as undermining for them as State Capture has been on South Africa’s economy. The lineout was also a highly profitable area for them.

Connacht were eventually on the board in the 68th minute through replacement prop Jack Aungier, and then when the Bulls lost another man because they were forced into uncontested scrums due to Wessels’ yellow card and Grobbelaar being injured, flyhalf David Hawkshaw charged down a Chris Smith clearance and scored.

By the end of this stop-start affair, dominated by officialdom, many in the crowd were more interested in watching their fellow spectators build multi-storey beer snakes out of their empty cups.

Scorers

Bulls: Tries – Kurt-Lee Arendse, Zak Burger (2), Marcell Coetzee. Conversions – Johan Goosen (4).

Connacht: Tries – Jack Aungier, David Hawkshaw. Conversions – Hawkshaw (2).

Temba Bavuma’s outstanding leadership – sensitive to the unity of the team but also decisive and intuitive – at the T20 World Cup has shown that he is the man to lead the Proteas in the next edition of the tournament which will be held in less than a year’s time in Australia.

To have such a strong, inspirational captain is a massive positive for South African cricket, and Bavuma also batted with trademark tenacity in tough conditions, averaging 30 for the tournament. He will want to work on his strike-rate of 108, but that was higher than Quinton de Kock’s!

The T20 World Cup in Australia should be a high-scoring affair and South Africa’s batting will need to become more attacking. Knowing Bavuma, whose overall strike-rate in T20s is 125, he will be working very hard on that aspect of his game in the interim.

But with the huge strides made by Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen, plus the continued reliability of David Miller as a finisher, Bavuma is likely to need to move up the order and open the batting with Quinton de Kock, who remains South Africa’s most dangerous T20 batsman.

But the way Markram has transformed into a boundary-clearing finisher, as well as still being able to play the building and changing gears role like Van der Dussen has done so well, is another huge positive for the Proteas.

South Africa’s bowling attack continued to perform as an outstanding unit in the UAE. They have a variety of skills to cover a pretty catholic range of conditions.

Anrich Nortje, who tormented batsmen with both his sheer pace and great control, and Kagiso Rabada are a fearsome pair of fast bowlers, with Lungi Ngidi waiting in the wings.

South Africa’s spin-bowling strength, led by Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj, has been the defining force of their great run in T20 cricket – their win over No.1 side England means they have won 13 of their last 15 matches.

Dwaine Pretorius, who took nine wickets and conceded just 6.88 runs-per-over bowling mostly at the death, has shown he is a cool and wily cat, and Wiaan Mulder is waiting in the wings with a package of all-round skills that might just be better suited to Australian conditions.

In terms of depth, Bjorn Fortuin, Reeza Hendricks and Heinrich Klaasen were also part of the squad in the UAE and they have all shown the ability to shine at international level. Add George Linde and Andile Phehlukwayo to that list and it is clear there is quality back-up in most positions.

Of course coach Mark Boucher would love some more players to put in consistently dominant performances at domestic level to add to that depth.

But there are a whole lot of reasons to feel hopeful about the future of this Proteas team and fans should be licking their lips in anticipation of their further development.

A divided house will never stand and Proteas batsman Rassie van der Dussen said on Thursday that the determination and fight the team has shown in both their T20 World Cup matches thus far has proven the unity and dedication to their task within the team.

South Africa made a disastrous start to the tournament by losing three wickets in the first 25 balls of their match against Australia, but almost defended their mediocre total of 118-9 with a superb display in the field.

Before their second game against the West Indies, they were rocked by the CSA Board’s directive for them to take the knee in support of BLM and Quinton de Kock’s subsequent withdrawal from the match when they arrived at the ground. After a torrid first 10 overs, they fought to restrict the West Indies to 143-8, a total they chased down with aplomb.

“It was a big day for us with everything that had transpired before,” Van der Dussen said on Thursday. “We knew we had to get the win but the West Indies are always a massive threat especially when they also lost their first game.

“I was really proud of how the team stood up, proud of the spirit, we showed what we can do and that there’s real resilience and character in the team.

“The enormity of the occasion did not escape us and what happened almost made the result even more important. We wanted to make people proud and left everything on the field.

“We showed our tenacity, where our minds are at, and after a bad first half of the innings, we never threw in the towel. We had to dig deep and I’m proud of how we responded to all the things thrown at us,” Van der Dussen said.

Playing Sri Lanka in Sharjah on Saturday will be the biggest trial by spin the Proteas have faced up till now in the tournament, but Van der Dussen said they have trained for the occasion for more than a year now.

“Sharjah will probably suit Sri Lanka more than us, but we have shown that we have really improved in foreign conditions. The coaching staff started more than a year ago to put a lot of emphasis on upskilling us in conditions we didn’t grow up in.

“The way we approach spin has improved a lot. We have confidence because we know now we have the skill and the experience of winning matches in conditions like that,” Van der Dussen said.

Long-serving Proteas manager and doctor Mohammed Moosajee remembers being made to bat in fading light at Transvaal nets in the early days of unity and he says such biases still exist in South African cricket, calling for a sporting version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help the healing process.

Moosajee was a fine cricketer who captained the South African Cricket Board version of the SA Schools side and was 23 years old when Unity happened. And yet he never added to his seven first-class caps when the new dispensation arrived.

“In 1992 when Unity happened, I was in the prime of my career and part of Transvaal training. But us guys from the SACB clubs only got to bat once the light was going down and there’s no doubt we had to work much harder because there was inherent bias. I felt we maybe came back into international cricket too easily, we sacrificed too much to appease the politicians.

“We must understand that prejudice is still very much part and parcel of our country, some still remains and we can’t just wish it away. There is no trust nor healing in cricket and we desperately need our own TRC because cricket is just a microcosm and reflection of a racist society. And our coaches also need to be given a platform because they are the ones who need to foster Black excellence,” Moosajee said at a recent Ahmed Kathrada Foundation webinar on racism in cricket.

Moosajee, who is now serving on the South African Cricketers’ Association management board, was adamant, however, that the Cricket South Africa Board should not be allowed to get their grubby little mitts on the TRC process.

“I am encouraged by the Cricket for Social Justice programme but we mustn’t forget it was set up by the same CSA who have had a litany of governance issues, if you are having continuous problems in the boardroom then it will impact on the delivery of transformation. So what credibility do CSA have? I will support it if it is run independently and not by CSA, if there is to be any credibility then the current Board cannot be involved.

“The most important stakeholders in coming up with solutions are the players and CSA must ask themselves why a few months ago they were in court fighting against their own players? There are people on that Board lining their pockets with directors’ fees and not taking into account proper corporate governance. Who will police the police? The Board cannot judge themselves,” Moosajee said.

The longest-serving member of the Proteas staff (from 2003 to the end of last year’s World Cup) said South African cricket has nevertheless come a far way from those early days of unity.

“In 2003 when I was appointed team doctor some of the squad members were uncomfortable not having a White doctor, but it did not bother me at all because they had no choice but to develop that trust. And in my early days as manager – it happened overseas as well, specifically in England and Australia – officials would try and bypass me and go directly to the coach.

“But after our first culture camp in 2010 we developed an authentic, emotional identity because we considered our fractured past, our history and our diversity. We wanted to use the fact we were the most diverse team in the world as an advantage and it was no surprise in 2012 when we became the first team to be ranked number one across all formats,” Moosajee explained.

Part of that process has been educating people that some of their simplistic views needed to evolve from bigotry to tolerance.

“When we would go to India and people were called “Chillipips”, they needed to be educated; when we went to Bangladesh and the call-to-prayer happened and guys would ask why they are screaming, they needed to be educated, and that’s what we tried to do from 2010 onwards. Culture is probably the most misunderstood part of any organisation but it can be the deciding factor in success or failure.

“But we also need to be honest. With a number of coaches and selectors, the challenge is an unconscious bias, but CSA also needed to stand up and take responsibility for things like the 2015 World Cup and four players of colour, because they left a lot to interpretation. Players of colour continue to feel unsupported and we need to applaud someone like Lungi Ngidi, a champion young man who showed awareness and spoke out,” Moosajee said.