Ken Borland

If you are used to some of the Bulls sides of old, you would not believe it but current coach Jake White has prioritised a counter-attacking fullback, which is why he has shifted wing Canan Moodie to No.15, in place of the injured Kurt-Lee Arendse, for their United Rugby Championship clash with Glasgow Warriors at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

Arendse, who has shown marvellous ball skills and the ability to regularly ghost past defenders on his way to seven tries in this season’s tournament, fractured his thumb last weekend against Benetton Treviso. White described it on Thursday as a relatively minor injury similar to the one that kept Stormers star Warrick Gelant out for a few weeks.

“Kurt-Lee got injured in the 60^th minute and then after the game he felt his hand was a bit sore after the adrenalin wore off. He came to training on Monday and the hand was a bit bruised,” White explained.

“The scans showed a little hairline fracture at the bottom of the thumb and he had a screw put in which should help the bone heal quicker, hopefully it gets him back on the field sooner.

“It’s an injury like Warrick had, with the associated ligament damage, which could take four-to-six weeks, but hopefully sooner because Kurt-Lee is very important to us.

“The way we attack requires a different kind of fullback to say a David Kriel, Kurt-Lee’s type of fullback has worked well for us. And the competition as a whole has shown that a fullback that can attack from the back works – for example Warrick,” White said.

The well-travelled World Cup winning coach likes the idea of backs who can play in several different positions, and the versatile James Verity-Amm comes in on the right wing to replace Moodie, while former Springbok wing Cornal Hendricks will continue his midfield partnership with Lionel Mapoe, with specialist inside centre Harold Vorster on the bench upon his return from a positive Covid test.

“Canan has run a few times at fullback in training and James can play both fullback and wing. It’s a good opportunity to see how Canan goes at fullback with mature and older wings around him in James and Madosh Tambwe,” White said.

“In the 2003 World Cup, Australia played Latham, Roff, Rogers, Larkham and Burke, who were all fullbacks. If you’re good enough, you should be able to play anywhere.

“It’s just about balancing the combinations, and the number on your back is not important in multi-phase attack. Jonah Lomu played eighthman at school and was one of the greatest wings ever.

“Tiaan Strauss and Morne du Plessis both played fullback and centre before moving into the pack; Danie Craven played in a handful of positions for South Africa. So it’s nothing new.

“It’s the way the game is going now, the more versatile you are the better. To use a chess analogy, having more Queens would be better that having just Pawns that can only play in certain ways,” White said.

Bulls team:Canan Moodie, James Verity-Amm, Lionel Mapoe, Cornal Hendricks, Madosh Tambwe, Morne Steyn, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Arno Botha, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. IMPACT-Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Simphiwe Matanzima, Dylan Smith, Janko Swanepoel, Cyle Brink, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Harold Vorster.

What should have been a great summer of cricket, golf and rugby in South Africa is being threatened by the Omicron variant of Covid, which is an annoyance us sports lovers are getting used to, but what really angers me is the superior, hypocritical attitude of many overseas administrators and professionals.

The bio-secure bubbles that South African sporting bodies have put in place have proven to be exceptionally safe, a credit to the outstanding scientists and doctors we have in the medical sphere. But for many of those in the West, we are in Africa and therefore all the old stereotypes of being backward and unadvanced apply. It is an insulting and bigoted attitude.

Plus South African society is probably safer than many in Europe and America, where most people are ignoring preventative measures like masks, hand sanitising and social distancing. In America, there has also been a sizeable section of the population who have refused to get vaccinated.

It was the United Kingdom who began all the trouble by rushing to implement travel bans before they had even received all the scientific information about Omicron. The fact that the boorish Boris Johnson and his ill-informed medical advisors, who have grossly mishandled Britain’s Covid response over the last couple of years, are setting the tone for the global response is infuriating. We have someone who has presided over a country that now has more than 50 000 cases a day declaring South Africa, with 11 500 cases a day, a pariah.

And it’s not just those three major sports that have been affected: The U21 Women’s Junior Hockey World Cup was set to be held in Potchefstroom, the first time the sport would have staged a world cup in Africa, but that has been called off, and the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships, to be held this weekend in Pretoria, have also been deferred indefinitely.

The United Rugby Championship and the Sunshine Tour golf organisation have already seen their December events grossly disrupted by the Omicron panic, while Cricket South Africa will be hoping against hopes that the Indian tour, which is worth $100 million to the financially-strained organisation, will go ahead as scheduled.

The problem for all local sports bodies is that overseas competitors will now start using Covid fears as an excuse not to fulfil their commitments. India’s cricket players, safe in the knowledge that no-one in world cricket dares to ruffle the feathers of the BCCI, will do whatever they want, and we can only hope captain Virat Kohli’s love of Test cricket and desire to win a series in South Africa sways the day.

As we have seen in previous waves of Covid, things will happen quickly as the number of cases rises exponentially. But will overseas sportsmen be safer back home, where this variant almost certainly originated, or in a bio-bubble in South Africa?

Will the travel bans be lifted now that there is compelling evidence that Omicron did not originate in Southern Africa but was merely detected here first? One day the identities of the overseas diplomats who brought it into Botswana at the beginning of November will be revealed. The fact that the Munster rugby team had 14 positive cases by the start of this week, having been in a bubble since their arrival in South Africa, suggests they probably arrived with Covid, possibly catching it on the plane coming over, and have now been spreading it amongst themselves.

Of course it will always be the African countries that are at fault in the eyes of many of our Western visitors.

Cardiff rugby player Matthew Morgan ranted on social media about being dragged to South Africa in the middle of a pandemic and called the whole situation a “shambles”. Instead of being so privileged, perhaps he should be reading more of what leading scientists are saying.

Test rugby is always a high-stakes endeavour, but the series against the British and Irish Lions is going to be as tightly wound as the bobbins on the machines that used to stitch together the four panels that comprised a rugby ball, which is why the Springboks will be relying on the tried and tested experience within their squad, according to backline coach Mzwandile Stick.

The Lions’ last two Tests were a 15-15 draw and a three-point win over the All Blacks in 2017, and South Africa won the 2009 series through a five-point win in Durban and then the 28-25 thriller in Pretoria. So while there is much excitement over the likes of Aphelele Fassi, Damian Willemse, Rosko Specman, Yaw Penxe or Sanele Nohamba pulling on the Green and Gold next month, Stick preached caution on Thursday.

“There’s going to be massive pressure and we have to make sure we build the confidence of the youngsters. We can’t just throw Aphelele, Rosko and Yaw in together. We’ve still got a guy like Willie le Roux, who has massive experience and understands what it takes at Test level. We want Aphelele to feed off Willie and not wait until he retires to be able to learn that stuff.

“The new guys are all asking good questions, interacting and training with the experienced guys, and seeing what stuff they do off the field to prepare as well. If Willie can help Aphelele now, then it means he won’t take seven years to learn those things. We really want to build our depth and start from scratch at scrumhalf when someone like Faf de Klerk decides to move on,” Stick said.

The curse of the Covid pandemic, and South Africa’s hard lockdown, means the Springbok management has also had to focus strictly on the conditioning of the locally-based players in order to make sure they will be up to the intensity of Test rugby when they step on to the field at the Cape Town Stadium on July 24.

“As coaches we were never lectured in a pandemic and I think the last one was in 1918! But it’s been a tough challenge for the players as well and we had to improve our ball-in-play time. We know at Test level that it’s close to 38-40 minutes, but in our Currie Cup we were averaging 26 minutes. So we needed to control the stoppages and what happens off the ball.

“Fortunately the standard has really improved, skills-wise too. We know the last time we played together was in the World Cup final in 2019, but the last time the Lions played together was in 2017, so both teams are in the same situation. Luckily our overseas players have had tough, physical competition week in and week out. And no-one is interested in excuses anymore,” Stick said.

Duane Vermeulen must be used to being the object of huge admiration from rugby fans by now, so it was nice on Thursday to hear the talismanic Springbok eighthman almost gush over the prospect of teaming up with Marcell Coetzee for the first time in the Bulls’ loose trio when they take on the Stormers in their massive Rainbow Cup clash at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

Coetzee, who earned himself legendary status at Ulster when he moved there from the Sharks in 2016, will make his debut for the Bulls on Friday night in a highly-anticipated North/South derby that could well decide who wins the South African leg of the Rainbow Cup.

Vermeulen and Coetzee will be hoping to reproduce their epic performance for the Springboks back in 2014 when they beat the All Blacks 27-25 at Ellis Park to end a five-game losing streak against their great rivals. Vermeulen was immense despite playing with cracked ribs and won the man of the match award.

“Marcell has good character, he has great energy on the field and I’m really looking forward to playing with him again. He’s a good ball-carrier, he has pace to the ball. He’s actually just a really well-rounded player – he tackles and carries the ball well, and can play to the ball.

“And it’s going to be nice to have young Elrigh Louw playing with us, he can learn a lot from Marcell now too. Marcell is really experienced and he can back me up on decision-making as well,” Vermeulen said on Thursday.

Vermeulen is no stranger to playing with pain to this day, and Bulls coach Jake White said it was the courage of his captain that eggs his team-mates on to greater heights.

“Every week Duane is in the doctor’s room getting things drained out of his knee. He could hold back every week, he could say ‘Coach, I need a break’. But he always fronts up, it’s why he has achieved what he has and with that sort of leader I know I’ll have no problem with any other players. I don’t feel like anyone is not going to put their body on the line and give their absolute best,” White said.

The coach was similarly excited about being able to pick Coetzee, saying he can play in each of the loose-forward positions, but adding the Bulls’ combination of Vermeulen, Louw and Coetzee, with Marco van Staden on the bench, is probably the best in global club rugby.

White also praised his conditioning staff for ensuring Coetzee and fellow Springboks Ivan van Zyl and Gio Aplon have all been able to return to action in a crucial match in which the Bulls will need all the quality they can get against a powerful Stormers team that is gaining momentum.

Bulls team: David Kriel, Madosh Tambwe, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Cornal Hendricks, Stravino Jacobs, Morné Steyn, Ivan van Zyl, Duane Vermeulen (C), Elrigh Louw, Marcell Coetzee, Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. Bench – Schalk Erasmus, Jacques van Rooyen, Trevor Nyakane, Janko Swanepoel, Marco van Staden, Zak Burger, Chris Smith, Gio Aplon.