Ken Borland

Francois Steyn’s return to the Sharks captaincy and the flyhalf position for Saturday’s SuperRugby game against the Western Force is now in doubt after Sanzar decided to appeal the decision of their own judicial officer and put the 2007 World Cup winner back on trial for the tip-tackle for which he was red-carded last weekend against the Chiefs.

It is believed All Blacks lawyer Stephen Cottrell is behind Sanzar’s unprecedented decision to appeal against Advocate Jannie Lubbe’s ruling this week that exonerated Steyn, and a Sanzar Appeals Committee, chaired by Terry Willis and with advocates Nigel Hampton and Robert Stelzner as members, will hear the matter via a video conference on Friday morning South African time.

But this will seriously disrupt the Sharks’ preparations for the match against the Force, with their team due to be named on Thursday morning and the Vodacom Cup side off to Cape Town on Friday morning. The franchise has appealed against the timing of the hearing and are looking to get it moved to after the game, either on Sunday or Monday.

Although Lubbe’s decision to clear Steyn was considered to be a highly generous one, Sanzar’s appeal is nevertheless extraordinary as they have never turned on one of their own judicial officers before.

The move has once again reignited old feelings of bitterness that South African players are judged by different standards in the competition, particularly since Cottrell, a legal representative for Sanzar, was the lawyer who defended Brad Thorn when he notoriously up-ended Springbok captain and current CEO John Smit, dumping him on his back without the ball, during a Test against the All Blacks in Wellington in 2008.

Cottrell argued that because Smit did not have the ball, Thorn’s foul play could not be considered a dangerous tackle and he was only given a one-week ban.

It was a decision that outraged the Springboks, for whom current Sharks director of rugby Gary Gold was then an assistant coach.

The uncertainty over Steyn further complicates the issue of the Sharks captaincy in the absence of the rested Pat Lambie and the suspended Bismarck du Plessis.

George Coetzee’s game may have been “all over the show” but the Tshwane Open winner will go into the second round of the Chase to the Investec Cup final in pole position after the opening day at Millvale Private Retreat near Koster outside Rustenburg on Thursday.

Coetzee is the co-leader after the first round with South Africa’s top-ranked golfer, Charl Schwartzel, after both fired brilliant four-under-par 68s on a tough course in a gusty wind.

An incredible run of eagle at the par-five seventh, followed by four straight birdies saw Coetzee go into the lead on five-under-par, but a bogey on 12 followed by a double-bogey on the par-three 13^th saw him slip behind Schwartzel, before drawing level with the 2011 Masters champion with birdies on the 15^th and 16^th holes.

The 28-year-old Coetzee was in 11^th place in the Chase to the Investec Cup standings, but with none of the top-10 able to break par at Millvale, he is now projected to finish first and win the bonus pool if the leaderboard remains the same.

“I don’t know how I shot four-under because my game was all over the show. This is not the easiest course to play in the wind and the speed of the greens was very fast and the placement of the pins meant you had to really plot your way around the course, it was hard work,” Coetzee said.

Schwartzel is chasing a consistent swing ahead of the Masters from April 9 and his game was looking almost spot-on under the testing conditions at Millvale.

“For a while now I’ve been working out my swing and it’s getting better and better. It’s a matter of trusting it out on the course, because it doesn’t matter on the range. So today was a good round in hard conditions, it was challenging and anything under par was good,” Schwartzel said.

Tournament ambassador Ernie Els is desperate for a local winner of the South African Open at Glendower Golf Club this year, but for next year’s event he has big plans to bring out Rory McIlroy and other top international golfers for the second oldest national open in the game, which starts on Thursday.

After three successive foreign winners of the South African Open – Andy Sullivan and Morten Orum Madsen at Glendower and Henrik Stenson at Serengeti, Els said on Tuesday that it was time for a team effort by the South Africans to ensure the prestigious trophy returns home.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on winning our national open, but for the last few years the foreigners have come and taken the trophy. I know it’s not a team competition, but I can guarantee you that the South African guys are going to pull together to try and take the trophy back because the foreigners are starting to take over. Branden Grace has not won it yet and I know he’s desperate to do it and I think George Coetzee is taking it very seriously this year as well. The local guys really want to win it,” Els said.

But from next year, Els himself will make it even harder for the home golfers as he plans to bring world number three and four-time major winner McIlroy over for the tournament.

“I’ve got Rory to commit to playing in the tournament, although I gave him some time to do it, a couple of years. For those top guys in the world, their schedule is so condensed, but I’m sure next year we’ll get him down here, maybe we’ll put him up in Cape Town for New Year’s.

“Rory has been such a great friend and supporter of our charities, as have other great players too. They’re all great lovers of South Africa, guys like Chubby Chandler and Lee Westwood are in Cape Town right now. I’m beginning to find my feet as the tournament ambassador and I want to make the field stronger. The top couple of golfers in the world have horribly busy schedules but I’m getting commitments from them,” Els said.

As for Ernie’s own game, the five-time winner of the SA Open had, by his own admission, an awful 2015, but he has spent many hours playing while also getting himself refreshed over the festive season.

“It was tough last year, as bad as it’s ever been, I missed some really short putts and I had tennis elbow. But I took time off, I feel refreshed and I feel up for it. I’d love to be in the top-50 again by the end of the year and I played a lot in December in Oubaai,” Els said.

Handre Pollard was confirmed as the hottest young thing in South African rugby on Sunday night, but the winner of both the Young Player and U20 Player of the Year awards is not yet a definite starter in the number 10 jersey for the Springboks at the World Cup later this year.

Pollard himself accepts this and the most famous of all Springbok flyhalves, Naas Botha, believes the tactical demands of each individual match will decide whether the Bulls star or Pat Lambie start in the pivot position during the World Cup.

“Both Handre and Pat are absolutely fantastic flyhalves but I think it depends on what the Springboks want to achieve tactically when it comes to choosing between them,” Botha told The Citizen.

“Handre is different to most flyhalves because he’s more of a strike runner, when he’s under pressure he backs his physicality. I just think he’s a different attacker than your normal, smaller number 10s, he’s a lot more direct with ball in hand.

“Pat has quicker hands than Handre and can make something out of nothing outside him. Sometimes Handre will just decide to run into the defence, whereas Pat can create space out wide in those situations.

“But they’re both exceptional kickers and fantastic defenders, so I think it depends on where the Springboks want to attack the opposition: more directly or out wide,” Botha explained.

The 20-year-old Pollard says the most important thing for him in the forthcoming SuperRugby season is to develop the consistency that marks out first-choice Springboks.

“It’s a World Cup year so it’s massive for me and the team as well, but my first focus is on SuperRugby, because nobody has been selected for the World Cup yet. It’s a big year especially for the Bulls because we really need to step up this year.

“SuperRugby is going to be the biggest challenge yet for me and what I’ll be focusing on is consistency. Players like Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers play well week in and week out,” Pollard said.

The suggestion that Lambie (1.78m, 87kg) and Pollard (1.88m, 97kg) could play alongside each other in the Springbok team, especially with inside centre De Villiers’ participation in doubt due to a serious knee injury, does not seem likely to happen given that the World Rugby Junior Player of the Year said that the Bulls will only use him in the number 12 jersey “if push comes to shove”.

*Naas Botha has criticised World Cup organisers for putting the Springboks and defending champion All Blacks in the same side of the draw for the knockout stages of the World Cup.

South Africa are in Pool B and New Zealand in Pool C and, if they both win their pools and their probable quarterfinals against England/Australia and France/Ireland respectively, then they will meet in the semi-finals, despite currently being the two best sides in the world.

“I don’t understand how New Zealand, who are ranked first, and us, who are second, can meet in the semi-finals. It is absolutely wrong. One versus two, if both teams do their job, should be the final.

“We know why it’s happening, but is it right? Nobody wants to see the two best teams playing each other in the semi-final!” Botha said.

The draw for the pools was done a year after the previous World Cup, but the All Blacks and Springboks were also the top two teams in the world at the end of 2012.

http://citizen.co.za/323290/pollards-star-shining-bright/