Ken Borland

Due to their reliance on physicality and aggression, the Springboks have often been regarded as the bad boys of rugby. Which is all well and good when it comes to intimidating the opposition, but not so helpful when, in the eyes of the referees, you are the team who needs to be watched more carefully.

It’s a stereotype of course (which we know all about in this country), but it’s funny how, almost as surely as night follows day, South Africa win a World Cup or are the best team in the world and the narrative from overseas begins that the way they play the game is bad for rugby.

By way of contrast, New Zealand’s All Blacks are the golden child of rugby – everything they do is skilful, dazzling and how the game should be played. Even when they are kicking more than any other team or mastering the dark arts of niggle and consistently killing the ball in their own 22.

South African rugby has, however, gone through phases when it was unacceptably dirty and it is fair to say our natural tendency is towards conservative, defensive, backs-to-the-wall type play rather than embracing risk and flair. As current Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has pointed out though, it is the differences in style, in the DNA of teams, that makes international competition interesting. It would be really boring if everyone played the same way.

When I was a boy, there were no neutral referees so teams did not worry about the perceptions of the officials. The history books show that overseas teams considered it extremely difficult to win in South Africa, describing the refereeing as rather patriotic.

But now, the referee and his viewpoint are now an important part of an international team’s preparation for a match. And it is probably fair to say the current Springbok team is having a hard time with how referees are perceiving them at the moment, judging by Rassie Erasmus’s notorious video and the number of calls that seem to be going against them at the moment. In the last week we have had Faf de Klerk’s yellow card that set the tone for their poor second Test against Australia now being exposed by no less an authority as Nigel Owens as being a wrong call.

Probably the last time the Springboks faced such a PR crisis was between the 1995 and 2003 World Cups. Prior to 1995, James Small had been the only Springbok ever red-carded, when Ed Morrison sent him off against the Wallabies in Brisbane in 1993. But between 1995 and 2003, another five players were sent to the showers early and there were also numerous yellow cards.

Boy, did South Africa have a problem with discipline no matter how hard the likes of Andre Markgraaff and Rudolf Straeuli try to run the team like an army camp.

So when Jake White took over as Springbok coach in 2004, it was one of the key areas he identified as needing to improve. It was one of the reasons John Smit was appointed as captain, because the hooker was well-liked by referees and had a good ‘bedside manner’ with them.

As Smit built a rapport with the referees around the world and White clamped down hard on any on-field ill-discipline, so the Springboks’ reputation improved and they began to get more of the 50/50 calls. By 2007 they were world champions and the same group of players continued to dominate until the 2011 World Cup quarterfinal when Bryce Lawrence failed to read the script or the law book properly.

But the current Springboks’ issues with officiating and their efforts to get a fair deal are more likely to be resolved through gentle diplomacy than angry videos. Captain Siya Kolisi is one of the most respected people in global rugby, so I would like to see him take a leaf out of John Smit’s book and begin a charm offensive with the referees.

So what if the vanquished Northern Hemisphere teams don’t like the game-plan, but getting on the right side of the officials is a vital part of winning rugby.

DURBAN, KwaZulu-Natal – Aged 40, Peter Karmis is certainly not old, but in many ways he is older and wiser now when it comes to his chosen career and passion, professional golf.

The fact that he has won before at Mount Edgecombe and finished second in his previous Vodacom Origins of Golf appearance in Sishen at the end of August, plus the knowledge that he has been working hard on his game (he was on the putting green until the sun set on Tuesday), suggest Karmis will be a strong contender for this week’s event on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast.

But Karmis is experienced enough to know that some days are your day and others just are not.

“Sometimes you just wake up and you know you’re going to play well. If you have not done enough work in the lead-up to an event you know you’re not going to win, but there are also times when you are fully prepared but you have to be content with making the cut. Just being in the mix requires a different mental state, guys talk about that mental side of knowing when to execute, even though your hands are sweating and your heart is racing. But I enjoy it, that’s what we play for, and that’s when your mechanics need to perform under pressure, which is why it comes back to hard work,” Karmis said.

“At Sishen, my mechanics were so-so to be honest, but my game is getting better again. I just needed that one good shot that would have made the difference. But it was good to feel the competitive juices flowing again.”

Professional golf is such a tough battlefield and as a career it requires much sacrifice, but Karmis has a stunning grasp of the balance required between golf being his job and the fact that, at the end of the day, he is still playing a game that one is meant to enjoy.

“A lot of a professional’s life is lonely because you leave your family behind. I know when I was in Japan earlier this year, my happiest day ever was when my family came to Japan, but the worst day ever was when they left.

“As a golf pro, you have to get used to not having your own bed, your own stuff around you, there are things like different food, driving on the other side of the road, and the different cultures you come across. Sometimes in Japan you get a caddie who can’t speak English.

“Some people just can’t handle all those changes, but I just love playing golf, even just nine holes or a pro-am. And Keenan Davidse and Christiaan Basson and myself actually drove together to Sishen, we had a road trip together and that was fun,” Karmis said.

Sishen is the Northern Cape mining town close to Kuruman and 284km north-west of Kimberley. If one carries on down the N14 towards the Atlantic, after another 422km one comes to the famous town of Pofadder and then, another 57km to the West, one reaches Aggeneys, where Karmis was born.

Apart from the mine that digs up the rich deposits of copper, lead and zinc, the golf course is Aggeneys’s only other real attraction. It is where Karmis first picked up a club, “messing around” with his father, a “really keen golfer”. The family then moved to Cape Town when he was seven.

Aggeneys is an oasis in some of the most arid, unforgiving territory in South Africa, but also some of the most geologically rich land in the country. It is not hard to think of it as a metaphor for Karmis’s approach to professional golf – it can be an unforgiving landscape, but Karmis is able to dig deep and find the things of value that keep him going.

The winner of the Sun Sibaya Challenge at Mount Edgecombe in October 2016, Karmis is back for the 54-hole Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event on The Woods course starting on Thursday and says he loves playing in KwaZulu-Natal.

One of the reasons is what many other people complain about – the humidity.

But that’s Karmis for you – forever turning negatives into positives.

Faf de Klerk would be in the conversation when it comes to a World XV but the Springbok scrumhalf certainly rates the credentials of the Australian number nines that he will be up against in their Rugby Championship Test on the Gold Coast on Sunday.

Tate McDermott is the starting scrumhalf and comes from a Sevens background, so he is a lively ball-runner who definitely adds another dimension to the Wallabies attack. Reserve No.9 Nic White is more of a kicker, but also knows exactly where the tryline is, as well as being a deft off-loader in the close channels. He is also quite physical and combative.

“Tate McDermott is an exciting youngster and he will definitely threaten us around the rucks, plus Nic White is there as back-up. So it’s going to be a massive challenge for us on defence. The Wallabies are going to try and run us off our feet, so it’s going to be a huge challenge defensively.

“If you look at their recent scores, they haven’t been so good. But the way they have played has shown that if you switch off against them, then you can quickly be 14 or 21 points down. If we’re not mentally right then we’re going to come badly second. So we’re under no impression that it’s going to be easy. Defence is going to be very important and who can manage the game best,” De Klerk said.

Meanwhile, former Springbok coach Jake White, now director of rugby at the high-flying Bulls, has said playing in front of a hostile crowd is going to be an obvious hurdle for the tourists to overcome. Rugby in South Africa has not had spectators since the arrival of Covid 18 months ago.

“The one significant thing that is going to be completely different in Australia is that there’s going to be a crowd. Our guys would have forgotten what that’s like. When we got to Treviso for the Rainbow Cup final, having the home crowd in was incredibly different to what we were used to because we hadn’t done it for so long,” White said on Friday.

Nothing damages a relationship more than dishonesty and Cricket South Africa should bear that in mind when it comes to their relationship with Proteas fans, who have already had to put up with so much.

The selection of world cup squads has always been controversial simply because everyone has their own favourite cricketers who they believe should be in the team. But the announcement this week of the squad for the T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates next month has caused uproar because CSA have taken their fans to be fools.

George Linde, who has played in 14 of South Africa’s last 18 T20 Internationals – and done really well, was omitted from the squad of 15. The two orthodox left-arm spinners chosen, Bjorn Fortuin and Keshav Maharaj, have played just six and zero matches respectively over the same period. Linde is also the best batsman of the three.

Convenor of selectors Victor Mpitsang struggled to provide cogent reasons for why Linde, who has taken 15 wickets and has an economy rate of just 7.08, has suddenly been leapfrogged and I have yet to see any valid cricketing reasons put forward for the decision.

The elephant in the room – as it always seems to be – is quotas. For at least the last decade, no Proteas squad has gone to a World Cup with less than seven Black players. Which is the exact number chosen this time around too. Where the public was taken for fools was when Mpitsang said “there just happens to be seven players of colour” and when director of cricket Graeme Smith said “no policy was given to the selection panel”.

I get that the likes of Smith, Mpitsang, coach Mark Boucher and captain Temba Bavuma are caught between a rock and a hard place. Do they acknowledge that there is a quota to meet and risk undermining any fragile psyches amongst the players or do they pretend like nothing’s going on and alienate the public?

CSA’s new board need to be honest and come out and say what is more important for them: Ensuring the Proteas tick certain boxes when it comes to demographics or ensuring the very best combinations can go out and be competitive on the ruthless international stage.

Of course transformation and winning are not mutually exclusive – the Springboks have shown that. But when it comes to selecting between someone who has spent the last year meeting all expectations in his role or another player who has always been behind him in the pecking order, the colour of skin really should not come into it.

As much as some people want to ignore quotas, they are there. Denial is not going to stop that realisation seeping into the changeroom either.

After the Proteas lost the ODI series against Sri Lanka, what do you think the first question was in the post-match press conference with Boucher? Was it about the failure of the batting line-up or whether two seam-bowling all-rounders was the right selection?

It was neither.

“Are you happy with the balance of the side in terms of transformation?” was the first question. If the most pressing issue for the media is that only five players of colour were selected, including just two Black Africans (Bavuma and Lungi Ngidi were both unavailable), then why can’t CSA just be honest about quotas?

The CSA Board hire people to do a cricketing job but then also expect them to ensure political objectives are met, without ever talking about those ‘targets’. (What a euphemism that is as Ashwell Prince found out when he missed his ‘target’ once as Cape Cobras coach and was immediately hauled before a disciplinary hearing).

Just in case there is any doubt, I am a huge Maharaj fan and his T20 debut is overdue, plus he provides valuable leadership to the squad. I am also a Fortuin fan, but it is going to be hard on him to replicate Linde’s role at a World Cup given how few T20 Internationals he has had the opportunity to play in.