Ken Borland

Former Springbok World Cup winning captain John Smit has advised fiery Stormers eighthman Evan Roos to find a way to keep his passion on the field, but stay close to the line without overstepping it when it comes to ill-discipline.

Roos, who made his Springbok debut against Wales this year, was yellow-carded last weekend for an off-the-ball tussle, that saw him lean his elbow on his opposite number’s neck, in the 52^nd minute of the Stormers’ win over Edinburgh.  It came at a bad time when the Stormers were under pressure, and it allowed the Scottish team to close the gap to 13-17.

Overseas critics have accused the 22-year-old of being unnecessarily confrontational, some calling his play dangerous and thuggish.

“Evan is a player who is really driven internally and he needs to find a way to control that emotion,” Smit said when asked at a Vodacom United Rugby Championship media call how he would handle a player like Roos if he were captain.

“Players get away with absolutely nothing these days, the most aggressive thing you’ll see on a field now is someone grabbing a collar and looking angry.

“Eben Etzebeth does it very well, controlling his passion right up to the end point of not getting in trouble. Evan needs to somehow know how to bottle that passion, and you don’t want to temper his enthusiasm.

“He just needs to be told though that losing control won’t just cost him but the team too. I would tell him that the angrier he gets, the more the team’s ability to succeed is diminished,” Smit said.

Smit of course had arguably rugby’s hardest ever enforcer to rely on to lay down the law in Bakkies Botha. But sometimes it took all of Smit’s considerable leadership wisdom to keep the legendary lock on the field.

“I had a few players in the Springbok team who sometimes suffered from over-stimulation!” Smit laughed. “Take Bakkies. Whenever I wanted to try gee up the team in the changeroom, I would wait for Bakkies to go to the toilet or get his knee strapped, otherwise my team talk would make him a bit over-zealous in the first five minutes! And that would be to our detriment.”

DULLSTROOM, Mpumalanga – Heinrich Bruiners praised his amateur partner Anton Botha for the way he rose to the occasion on their closing holes to win the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series ProAm at Highland Gate Golf and Trout Estate on Wednesday.

Bruiners and Botha won by three points in the end, but they were closely pursued by James Hart du Preez and Navin Maharaj, and needed a birdie at their final hole, the par-four 10^th, to get them over the line.

“It was really fun and to have a competitive event before our Sunshine Tour tournament is nice,” Bruiners said. “We were in the lead from yesterday and I just said to Anton down the stretch that we needed to be a bit more aggressive and go for the win.

“We had such a good partnership and I thought birdie at the last would be enough. Anton sank his putt for birdie and then I made one too just for a nice finish.

“But I really needed him on the last few holes and he pulled through on four or five holes,” Bruiners said.

With the ProAm now done, the 34-year-old Bruiners will turn his focus to the R1.15 million Vodacom Origins of Golf Sunshine Tour event starting at the mountainous Highland Gate course on Thursday.

“It’s a good omen to win the ProAm and now it’s down to business from tomorrow. I’m swinging well and I finished 11^th last week in Pretoria, a bogey at the last cost me a lot, including a top-10 place.

“But it was still a decent performance and now I go into this tournament after playing good golf for two days. Every time I come Mpumalanga or Limpopo side, I seem to play well – it must be something in the air!” the George product said.

He has also been won over by the Highland Gate course.

“When I came four or five years ago, I didn’t enjoy the course so much. I must have been in a very bad mental space though because this course is unbelievable, one of my favourites, definitely in the top-10.

“I’ve got a different perspective now. It’s such a quiet environment out on the course, there’s not so much going on and you feel excluded from all the hustle and bustle,” Bruiners said.

For eight-handicapper Botha, a production manager for Schoeman Boerdery in Groblersdal, his maiden Vodacom Origins of Golf ProAm will give him a lifetime of memories, as well as a place in the final at Pinnacle Point from October 24-27.

“It was just unbelievable, the whole estate and Vodacom’s organisation was amazing. My highlight was the final hole when things were still tight. We both made birdies, I had a three-metre putt, but the monster drive I hit was my best shot of the tournament!” Botha said.

Stand-in Proteas T20 captain David Miller said coach Mark Boucher can be delighted not only with the team’s groundbreaking series win in England but also the way all members of the squad stepped up and ensured all three disciplines were firing in the last two games.

Having been well-beaten by 41 runs in the first match of the T20 series, South Africa clicked in batting, bowling and fielding as they won the last two games by 58 runs and 90 runs to win their first white-ball series in England since 1998.

“It’s a huge achievement, I hadn’t realised it had been as long as that,” Miller said after sealing the series in Southampton at the weekend. “It’s really tough to win here, they like to come hard at you and they’ve been really successful.

“So the guys are extremely happy and we’ll have a few drinks tonight and enjoy ourselves. The coach can be super-proud of all the performances. We stood up in all areas of the game.

“There were very good contributions all round. We spoke about the fielding after the first game and all the dropped catches. Our standards are very high and we took some seriously good catches after that.

“To show the bouncebackability we did makes us extremely proud, it showed the character of the team. We’ll take a lot of confidence from this and it’s a great space to be in,” Miller said.

The consistent finisher had special praise for his bowlers, especially wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi, who took eight wickets in the last two games to prove he remains one of the top bowlers in the format.

“Shamo showed he is not ranked as one of the best bowlers in the world for nothing. He knows what he has to do, I might just mention one or two pointers to him about what he can do, just to build his confidence up a bit.

“But the first T20 in Bristol had a very small boundary, we had a game the next day and that’s not something I wanted to harp on too much.

“Given the batting England have, lots of credit should go to our bowlers, they did extremely well. The margin for error is so small in T20 and it’s a funny game.

“But we played a lot of good cricket at the big stages, you have to make sure you’re up for the battle whatever match you’re going into,” Miller said.

Quinton de Kock said after the third ODI between South Africa and England that it was “nice to get out in the middle and score some runs” in his trademark understated way, but given the hunger he showed to make it really count on Sunday, the fact that rain limited his fun to just 76 balls in 105 minutes would have frustrated the 29-year-old.

The left-hander made the most of his time at the crease though, overcoming a scratchy start against excellent English seam bowling to stroke a marvellous 92 not out before the match was washed out. It was his first major innings since his phenomenal 140 not out for the Lucknow Super Giants against the Kolkata Knight Riders on May 18 in his penultimate IPL game.

De Kock had only batted five more times since then, suffering a hand injury during the Proteas’ T20 series in India, so he was eager to make his mark at Headingley.

“It was obviously nice to get out there and score some runs, spend some time in the middle after time away from the game,” De Kock said after the series was shared 1-1 with world champions England.

“The pitch was providing a bit of swing and movement, so I just had to soak up the pressure at first, 50 overs is a long time, and make sure I remained strong in my positions.

“I wanted to make sure I had a strong defence and put away the bad balls, while keeping the ball on the ground for as long as possible. That was the game-plan.

“It was tricky facing three left-arm seamers swinging it around. But we thought that might happen in this series, so we did our prep to make sure we weren’t caught off-guard,” De Kock said.

The three-match series did provide at least one unexpected outcome, with star England all-rounder Ben Stokes’s decision to join the growing number of players who have retired from a format of the game catching many off-guard.

De Kock himself is strictly a white-ball player these days, and pleasingly is still clearly a top-class practitioner who makes batting look so easy on days like Sunday. Part of his secret is that he does not overcomplicate things and he said how much cricket players should be willing to play is purely a personal decision.

“It is starting to be tough for those players who play in all three formats, that is a lot of cricket and there are even more games now over the calendar year,” De Kock said.

“It’s an individual decision, if you feel you can do it then I’m happy for you, but others have taken it into their own hands. It’s a personal decision.

“If you’re still young then I think you should still play in all three formats. But as you get older, the body doesn’t co-operate as much. It’s just about managing things to prolong our careers.

“But there are still World Cups I want to play in and win, I still have a lot to play for. I always try to make an impact, that’s what we’re here to do, no matter how many formats you play,” De Kock said.