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Ken Borland



What will be done about all the officiating errata? 0

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Ken

So Rassie Erasmus and SA Rugby have apologised and accepted their punishments from that perfidious body known as WorldRugby, but what will be done about all the officiating errata that has marred the game this year?

Most probably nothing because the northern hemisphere bloc that now enjoys the hegemony at WorldRugby will be too busy power-mongering and money-chasing to pay much notice to the real problems the game is facing. Rugby pundits around the world have been writing about the need to bring clarity and uniformity to the way the game is officiated for more than a decade now, and all WorldRugby seems to do is print new and even more confusing law interpretations.

The sport itself is losing credibility because fans no longer understand the laws or how they are blown. Frustrated, they end up casting aspersions on the integrity of the poor referees. It is a dangerous place for any sport to be when you are alienating your own supporters.

While Erasmus’s hour-long video was perhaps a bit too much like starting a riot for WorldRugby’s authoritarian tastes, a rant was inevitable following British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland being able to get away with questioning the integrity of South African Marius Jonker when he was appointed TMO shortly before the first Test due to Covid restrictions that stopped Brendan Pickerill from travelling from New Zealand.

Predictably, the 50/50 calls went the Lions’ way, but Erasmus was more upset with the poor refereeing of Australian Nic Berry.

But it’s not just Erasmus who has lashed out at officials this year. Wallabies coach Dave Rennie was publicly furious over how his team were treated by the officials on their European tour and rugby fans in South Africa were eagerly awaiting news of what action would be taken against him, especially since Jonker was the target of his rage, even though on a couple of key decisions he was left trying to find compelling evidence to overturn the referee’s on-field decision.

WorldRugby ended up just issuing Rennie a written warning on Friday.

Losing teams are always going to have one or two gripes to complain about, and generally the side that wins would have had a couple of decisions go against them too. But the mathematics of the recent officiating seems to have swung well away from 50/50.

Things are not adding up too often for WorldRugby to continue to turn a blind eye to this crisis.

Speaking about adding up, England conceded 11 second-half penalties against the Springboks last weekend as the pressure mounted on them, but there were no team warnings, no yellow cards. The great Nigel Owens stated in his column in the Telegraph that he felt South Africa were especially unfortunate not to get more reward out of their dominant scrum.

But the Springboks obviously don’t want to dare say anything critical and just add to the bans and fines WorldRugby are launching their way.

We can only hope that as one of their New Year’s Resolutions, WorldRugby can find it in their hearts to sort out the officiating crisis and placate the bee’s nest that has been stirred up this year. Of course referees will err and no-one wants to see them put under undue pressure.

But when the governing body turns a blind eye to accountability across the board, then it puts the high-stakes international game, made even more tense by bubble life, under untenable strain.

Basson hoping to make it count at Humewood & regain lost momentum 0

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Ken

GQEBERHA, Eastern Cape – Christiaan Basson has won before in the strong winds of the Eastern Cape in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series, claiming the St Francis Links title in 2015, and the 39-year-old is hoping this week’s event at Humewood Golf Club will be the one in which he “makes it count” and finally throws off the momentum-stopping effects of the Covid pandemic on his career.

Basson had enjoyed his best finish since 2011 on the Sunshine Tour order of merit, inside the top-20 in 2019/20 before Covid hit, and he hasn’t quite been able to recapture the same consistency in the last two seasons. He finished 38th in 2020/21 and is currently 43rd in the standings for this season.

The arrival of twins for Basson and his wife last year lessened the blow of his career being disrupted, but he is now itching to get back into contention and try and claim his fifth Sunshine Tour title.

“Yes, Covid definitely disrupted my golf, but it came at a good time for me to help my wife because we had twins just before the virus arrived. So they were in nappies through Covid and it was nice to have that family time together. But in terms of golf it put a bit of a stop on my progress and I haven’t really done well after Covid.

“I was sort of on a high when it hit and since then I haven’t had much opportunity, there haven’t been many big events with all the postponements. I’m positive about my game, it’s trending in the right direction, but I’m also keen to make one or two tournaments really count now,” Basson said.

Born in Strand, raised in Cape Town and now living there as a member of Metropolitan Golf Club, Basson is obviously at home in the strong winds that are expected to buffet the Humewood seaside links with increasing ferocity when the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series tees off on Thursday. But on Tuesday he said even he needed some time to adapt.

“The way I’ve played lately, I wouldn’t say I’m going in full of a lot of confidence, but I’m happy with these conditions and I think it suits my game. It’s been a while since I’ve played in such a strong wind though. You know how to do things in conditions like this, but you still need to get sharp beforehand. You can’t really practise for wind when there is no wind.

“But I like the conditions and the challenge. You’ve just got to be solid around here and keep the big mistakes off your card. You have to accept that you’re going to make one or two bogeys, especially into the wind, and mentally I’ll even swap the par-fours and par-fives around if the long hole is downwind and the par-four is into the wind. You can hardly get there in two sometimes when the par-four is into the wind,” Basson said.

It is a problem though that Basson is well-equipped to solve. He has the knowledge of winning at the St Francis Bay Links 100km west of Humewood and, now in his 15th season on the Sunshine Tour, he has plenty of experience of coastal conditions.

Maharaj admits Proteas will be restless sleepers when it comes to ODI World Cup qualifying 0

Posted on September 22, 2021 by Ken

Keshav Maharaj has been one of the consistently brilliant performers for the Proteas this year and also took to the stand-in captaincy with aplomb, but he admitted that he and his fellow leaders in the squad will be restless sleepers when it comes to automatic qualification for the next ODI World Cup following their series loss in Sri Lanka.

South Africa were beaten by 78 runs in the third and decisive ODI on Tuesday night, meaning they took just 10 points out of a possible 30 from the series. That leaves them languishing in ninth place in the standings, with the top eight qualifying automatically for the World Cup in India in 2023. Sri Lanka, meanwhile, have leapfrogged the Proteas into fifth place, eight points ahead of them.

“It is a bit concerning, we have to start winning series and taking care of those points. The first two games were very good in terms of how the batting approached playing spin-bowling, we scored a lot of runs. But tonight was disappointing and we need to reassess how we bat when the ball is turning a bit more. There was more turn and bounce today, but Sri Lanka bowled really well though.

“Maybe we need to change our mental strategy and approach, but I’m sure it’s not a lack of skills because the batsmen have worked very hard on that. But also maybe we focused a bit too much on spin tonight and were caught a bit unawares by their pace bowler [Dushmantha Chameera]. Not many teams lose four wickets in the powerplay and still win, even though I thought 203 was a fair score to chase,” Maharaj said after the Proteas were bundled out in only 30 overs for just 125.

Coach Mark Boucher admitted to struggling to get the right team balance on the night, with the two seam-bowling all-rounders, Wiaan Mulder and Andile Phehlukwayo, bowling just two overs between them and scoring a combined tally of only 19 runs. But a fair arbitrator would surely also point to the difficulties caused by quotas when it comes to balancing a team, especially with two Black African stars not available in Temba Bavuma and Lungi Ngidi.

And the first question Boucher was asked in the post-match press conference was whether he was happy with the balance of the side from a transformation perspective. To which he simply answered “Yes”.

“We needed to play an extra spinner and that threw us a bit. But with the rain, Anrich Nortje would have been a handful on that pitch as well. We wanted three seamers too and the batting is full of guys who have been in good form too. In hindsight, an extra batsman today would have been nice, but losing four wickets in the first 10 overs means we were always going to be under pressure no matter how deep our batting,” Boucher later explained.

Nienaber has no idea when or where Boks will next play, but he’s ‘unbelievably proud’ of them 0

Posted on September 07, 2021 by Ken

The Springboks have no idea when or where their next Rugby Championship appointment will be, but coach Jacques Nienaber said he was “unbelievably proud” of his team for getting over what he described as a “massive” hurdle when they beat Argentina 29-10 in their second Rugby Championship Test at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday evening.

For now, the Southern Hemisphere tournament is in limbo following New Zealand’s unilateral decision to not travel to Australia next week or host South Africa in their matches scheduled for September 25 and October 2. As accustomed to uncertainty the Springboks have had to become in these Covid times, Nienaber hinted that the shock developments on the eve of Saturday’s Test could well have rattled his team.

“I’m unbelievably proud of the squad because this was a massive Test for us, not far off the World Cup final, winning the Rugby Championship in Salta or the last Test against the Lions. I was actually very nervous about this game, we put lots of pressure on ourselves and the guys challenged themselves massively. Our focus had to be on this game and not if we’re going to stay in South Africa or travel to the UK or Brisbane or wherever.

“The players deserve all the credit, they are the ones who sacrifice their bodies for the country at the end of the day. I’m delighted for them. The game-management was excellent for the first three-quarters of the game, but we weren’t perfect because there were opportunities created that we did not finish. But you need to look at that from the perspective that we were up against a very desperate Argentina side,” Nienaber said after the win.

Despite their dominance, the Springboks only scored two tries, flyhalf Handre Pollard giving a polished goalkicking display as he added the other 19 points. Nienaber pointed to his team’s heavy schedule recently and the disruption caused by replacement scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse’s injury, which forced South Africa into playing the last eight minutes with only 14 men as wing Cheslin Kolbe had to shift to halfback, as mitigating factors.

“We’ve had to play six Tests on the trot, which you seldom have to do and doing that at this intensity takes its toll. We would have loved the bonus point and we went all out for it. But we also had to make changes because we need some guys to get more experience. We did that, we had to rotate and guys like Jaden Hendrikse, Damian Willemse and Kwagga Smith came on early.

“We were going full on at the end for the try that would have given us a bonus point and we said to them they should take chances, so I am not disappointed with the try we conceded in the last minute. It was absolutely worth it and it’s fantastic that we were in the position that we could go for it. But there were lots of things we also didn’t get right on our side,” Nienaber said.

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    Galatians 5:25 – “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep walking in step with the Spirit.”

    There is only one Christ and all things that are preached in his name must conform to his character. We can only know Christ’s character through an intimate and personal relationship with him.

    How would Christ respond in situations in which you find yourself? Would he be underhanded? Would he be unforgiving and cause broken relationships?

    “The value of your faith and the depth of your spiritual experience can only be measured by their practical application in your daily life. You can spend hours at mass crusades; have the ability to pray in public; quote endlessly from the Word; but if you have not had a personal encounter with the living Christ your outward acts count for nothing.” – Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm

     

     



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