Ken Borland

Ever since leading the most transformed Springbok side yet to World Cup glory, Siya Kolisi has gone beyond being merely a sports star and has become a powerful symbol of change and unity in South Africa, so it was no surprise to hear SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux say the national captain has every right to express his opinion.

Roux was responding to questions over how SA Rugby would respond to Kolisi’s social media post this week in which he supported the Black Lives Matter movement and spoke of his difficulties in fitting in with the Springboks and their culture. He said his culture was not represented in the team and he felt he had to conform in order to be accepted. Kolisi added that “the next generation can’t suffer like we did”.

Kolisi also pointed out that World Cup-winning coach Rassie Erasmus had addressed the issues and transformed the Springbok team both in terms of personnel and environment.

“Siya is his own person and he got to where he did by himself and led us to the World Cup, so it’s not for me or anyone else to tell him what he must say. We must give people the opportunity to tell their stories, and people will either support or not support what they say, but that is always the case. Personally, I respect his comments.

“Black Lives Matter is basically about respect for others and how we treat people on a daily basis. That should be first and foremost, whether we are talking about BLM, Farm Attacks or Gender-Based Violence. We’ve seen that rugby can have an influence in society and we need to own up to those issues and not steer away from those conversations,” Roux said this week.

Roux made the call for more discussions over improving opportunities for Black people in the sport.

“Let Black people tell their stories and what’s more important is for us to listen and hear what they are saying. We must not shy away from awkward truths. We must continue dialogue and figure out together how to bring change. Is our transformation plan robust enough? These are very serious matters that transcend way beyond sport.

“Maybe some elements of our plan do need change, for example when it comes to Black coaches. Rassie has presented a plan to fast-track Black coaches and we need to look at that more seriously. I’m the first to acknowledge that things have gone wrong, even if we have made some very good progress in transformation. As a federation, rugby has been very good at acknowledging our sins of the past,” Roux said.

Blistering pace and a keen nose for the tryline meant Bryan Habana was like an arrow zeroing in on its target when it came to try-scoring and the Springbok wing holds the records for the World Cup, Tri-Nations/Rugby Championship, the Springboks and for South Africans in SuperRugby. It is heartening to see the 36-year-old show the same acumen now that he has retired and is in the business world.

A graduate of the Toulouse business school, Habana is now the co-founder of Retroviral, a digital sports marketing agency with a strong emphasis on tech. It’s a career move which probably has its roots back in the early 2000s when he signed up for a BSc IT degree at the then Rand Afrikaans University. But then rugby got in the way.

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically affected everyone’s lifestyles and is likely to force structural adjustments to the economy of just about everything. Sport has been especially hard hit with the global sports industry now projected to face losses of $62 billion.

The Lockdown has also provided much food for thought for entrepreneurs and, typical of the sharp minds of Habana, Mike Sharman and Ben Karpinski, the founders of Retroviral, they have come up with a great new idea that will assist the wellbeing of sportsmen and women as they look to navigate these tumultuous times.

MatchKit.co is a mobile tech platform that allows athletes to build their own website. And not those starchy looking ones that are never updated, have lots of photos that take forever to load and are low on substance.

Within five minutes, sports stars can build themselves a website that highlights their sponsors, automatically integrates into all the big social media channels and provides detailed stats of their engagements on those platforms, has a plug-and-play, secure e-commerce store that will enable them to sell anything from branded merchandise to video or audio shoutouts, and a portal that will enable people to donate to their foundation or favourite charity.

It has often proven a stiff task for sportspeople to promote themselves better, they tend to forget certain sponsors or, in many cases, not even have an Online presence. MatchKit.co certainly appears to be able to overcome these problems.

“I’m extremely excited, MatchKit will add tangible value to athletes and allow them to easily commercialise their brands around the world. I know I was all over the place after our 2007 World Cup win, but MatchKit now allows the athlete to control their commercial rights, it empowers them, while showcasing their sponsors.

“It came about after bouncing ideas off a South African venture capitalist who’s now in the United States and it has a simple set-up. You look at sportspeople Online and not even 10-15% will have their agent’s details there. What if corporates want to engage with them? What happens if they change their agent?” Habana said at the launch this week.

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The great news to come out of the cricketing world in the last week is that the West Indies tour of England looks set to go ahead with the Caribbean squad arriving on Tuesday to quarantine ahead of a three-Test series that will start on July 8. The matches will be played behind closed doors in a bio-secure environment, with the first Test being held in Southampton, followed by two matches at Old Trafford, starting on July 16 and July 24 respectively.

That means the series will end on July 28. South Africa were scheduled to have played their first Test in the West Indies from July 23-27, with the second meant to start on July 31. With a lucrative T20 series against India lined up for the end of August, it now seems likely the Proteas will only meet the West Indians in September and there is still no clarity on whether that series will take place in the Caribbean or in South Africa, or even be moved to a neutral venue like England. The tour of the West Indies was originally meant to be of just over a month’s duration, so it doesn’t look possible to cram in the two Tests and five T20s that were meant to be played even if the Men in Maroon plant themselves in the UK and the Proteas fly over there and quarantine in the second half of July.

Springbok great Bryan Habana spent enough time playing in Europe to know exactly what it would entail for South African rugby to ditch Sanzaar and move into Northern Hemisphere competitions, and the 2007 World Cup winner is not totally sold on the idea, he said on Wednesday.

There has been global speculation that the world champions will leave Sanzaar after the 2023 World Cup to play in an expanded Six Nations tournament as well as their SuperRugby franchises joining European competitions like the Pro14 and Champions Cup. There has also been talk emanating from Australia of Sanzaar excluding teams from both South Africa and Argentina and focusing on just a trans-Tasman competition with New Zealand.

Habana, who scored a South African record 56 SuperRugby tries for the Bulls and Stormers, finished his career spending five years playing for Toulon so he has intimate knowledge of European competition.

“There’s been a lot of debate about South Africa joining the Northern Hemisphere but right now nobody even knows when rugby will be back in South Africa. Probably the one thing most needed by rugby is a global season. But I suppose the one question is whether Sanzaar need SA Rugby, they have been an important part of Sanzaar for the last 25 years.

“For those in the UK and Europe it’s much easier to watch games in South Africa than those in New Zealand or Australia. But it’s important to see where the Springboks and SuperRugby teams could fit in and they would have to fit in with the Northern Hemisphere schedule. I don’t see our guys enjoying playing in 5⁰ in December/January and how are our rugby fans going to enjoy watching rugby over Christmas when they’re on holiday?” Habana said on Wednesday in a virtual press conference to announce the launch of MatchKit.co, a mobile tech platform intended to help athletes grow their commercial brands, set up by the Retroactive agency of which he is a partner.

There have also been suggestions South African teams could play in both Sanzaar and the Northern Hemisphere, expanding the current involvement of the Free State Cheetahs and the Southern Kings in the Pro14, but Habana said the workload on the players even if they were just involved in Europe would be immense.

“When Toulon won the double in 2014/15 they played more than 40 games and player welfare is important. If we’re going to add four more teams and include the Springboks in the Six Nations then that would mean even more matches. There are advantages to both hemispheres, the players would learn more about foreign conditions and that allows you to develop more as a rugby player and as a person.

“To say who has the better standard of play though is very subjective because what determines a good standard? The Northern Hemisphere has come strongly to the fore in the last few years: In the 2015 World Cup the top four sides were all from the Southern Hemisphere, but in 2019 it was very different [England, New Zealand, Wales, South Africa]. Hopefully our decision-makers will choose what is best for the game as a whole,” Habana said.

Former Springbok captain John Smit believes rugby will need to be drastically streamlined once it resumes after the Covid-19 pandemic, while his fellow World Cup winner Joel Stransky is hoping for a quicker, less contact dominated game when action gets underway again.

Typically for the great South Africans they are, the two World Cup winners were busy handing out food parcels in Lonehill for the One Cup of Pap charitable initiative when they spoke to The Citizen about what they were hoping for once rugby is allowed to take place again.

Smit’s focus was on the effects of the suspension of play and how rugby organisations are going to have to adjust not just their schedules but also the very structure of the game in their respective countries in order to ameliorate the tough financial conditions that will be prevalent.

“Covid-19 has been a massive storm that has had a massive impact on our game, showing us how we have taken certain things for granted. I think it’s important to remember that rugby is largely a product of the players and wherever the sport is not streamlined enough, guys are going to have to make cuts.

“Decisions are going to have to be made about not just the survival of those in the game at the moment. Where the game is running fat, where most of the money is going, that’s where there have to be cuts and I think we all know where those places are,” Smit, a former CEO of the Sharks, said cryptically.

Former flyhalf Stransky wanted to see a pacier game in which there will be more exciting backline play.

“I don’t think the game will change so much although there will be more screening and testing, we will be more aware of the risks but there will still be running, scrumming and tackling. I would just like to see the space on the field used more. Rugby has become very predictable with defensive structures so well organised. The players are now very physical and tend to just bash it up.

“There is not too much backline excitement anymore; players like Cheslin Kolbe at the World Cup, stepping and beating players, using the space, are few and far between; normally the backs just kick the ball through now and hope for a mistake,” Stransky said.

The 1995 drop goal hero said he hoped being deprived of live rugby would encourage people to go back to the stadiums when the action resumes, and Stransky said he counted himself now amongst the people who used to just watch on television (when not broadcasting) but he would now be taking the family to games.

“There’s still going to be massive drama but every sport is in the same boat and we’re no different to other industries – we have all taken a knock. It could take years to bounce back but as soon as there is sport to watch live then hopefully people will be more inclined to go to the stadiums. I know I will be taking the family once rugby is back,” Stransky said.