Ken Borland

Bulls coach Jake White spent most of the last week emphasising how important a good start would be for his underdog team against the fast-starting Leinster side in their United Rugby Championship semi-final in Dublin.

So when the Bulls almost immediately conceded a soft offsides penalty and hot favourites Leinster were straight on to their goal-line, bashing away, one would imagine White would have been angry. But what followed was 11 phases of brilliant, brave defence that kept Leinster out. It would arguably be the making of the Bulls side and their stunning 27-26 win, the scoreline flattering Leinster because they scored after the final hooter.

“A lot has been said about Leinster, but they generally start well,” White said after what he rated as one of his most memorable wins as a coach. “We were forced to defend for the first couple of minutes.

“But then we managed to kick downfield and that changed the momentum of the game. Leinster were shown to be human, they normally don’t make silly mistakes, but they had one or two moments.

“In a one-point game, that makes the difference. It was never fait accompli against them, you have never done enough to keep them out. I’m happy they didn’t start like they ended with that last phase.

“This has got to be up there for me in terms of wins, Leinster have been the dominant force in European rugby, but our team has learnt what they need to do against international players,” White said.

The Bulls pack produced the sort of proud, combative, massively powerful display that inspires songs to be written about them and, in Dublin, it would probably be translated as the Bulls eateth not off the floor.

But White was also pleased his team showed some wonderful touches on attack.

“The Bulls have always historically had good forward play, but I really enjoyed the interplay between backs and forwards, especially in the first half.

“But the key against Leinster is to not give them set-piece, and we turned the ball over in a couple of key late lineouts, and our physicality on the gainline caused them to have a couple of knock-ons, which they don’t generally do.

“It was obviously a great win for us, but a couple of things did work in our favour, like the weather turning bad at one stage.

“But this whole group has grown significantly and the one thing we have got right is to play our best rugby in the knockout stages. I hope we continue to play with that intensity, composure and confidence,” White said ahead of this weekend’s final against the Stormers in Cape Town.

While there would have been some joyous relief for the South African team not to have to play powerhouses Netherlands or India, their FIH Hockey Pro League match against France in Potchefstroom on Tuesday night still ended in defeat as they went down 4-1.

While France are ranked just two places above South Africa in 12^th on the world rankings, they are arguably the most improved side in the game in recent years. So the good news for the embattled South Africans is that they matched France in the middle of the field, but it was in the circles where the European side were just way more clinical.

France went 2-0 up in the first 10 minutes through two deflection goals, but South Africa had also looked threatening, no more so when Bili Ntuli’s reverse-sticks shot came off the post after Bradley Sherwood, who was an encouraging addition to the side, robbed a defender of possession.

The hosts then held France scoreless in the second quarter and were creating enough opportunities for them to feel they could yet njotch their first Pro League win.

But France were just too clinical in the second half, making full use of the opportunities they had. In the 41^st minute, they pounced on one loose pass by South Africa, racing down the right of the field before crossing to the middle, where Gaspard Baumgartner finished the move for his second goal.

France went 4-0 up in the 54^th minute through similar ruthlessness on the counter-attack. A quick overhead from a free hit found an attacker on the edge of the circle, he put in the cross, which was missed by an SA defender, allowing Timothee Clement to score.

It was also a feature of the match that France’s defence remained impressively composed and solid, while South Africa’s tended to make costly basic mistakes every now and then.

South Africa did, however, get on the scoreboard with three minutes remaining when the Cassiem brothers, Mustapha and Dayaan, combined superbly for Dayaan to put the chance away. He had hit the crossbar just a minute earlier when Mustapha had also been the provider.

Despite their dodgy origin, there are many who believed the Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings would be a very good idea, something necessary to try and heal the increasingly polarised and embittered environment of South African cricket.

But now that the SJN report has been made public, what a grave disappointment it has been and what a waste of R7.5 million. So much evidence has simply been ignored or totally misinterpreted and the legal flaws within the findings reflect very poorly on Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza’s standing as one of our finest jurists. Never mind the poor job done by his assistants from Werksmans Attorneys.

It is now clear that the entire focus of the SJN was on getting dirt on Graeme Smith and Mark Boucher. Addressing historic wrongs and racial discrimination was just a side project.

Ntsebeza has found Smith’s appointment as director of cricket to be irregular and has also accused him of racist behaviour in the past. This is despite what I thought was compelling evidence presented by the likes of Cricket South Africa, the South African Cricketers’ Association and former Proteas manager Mohammed Moosajee.

The report almost entirely ignores all of that and goes way outside of its mandate in slamming Smith’s appointment. Surely Ntsebeza is aware that headhunting is a common occurrence in the corporate world and his appointment was approved by a number of people, the majority of whom were Black?

But no, it was racist. As was Boucher’s selection as Proteas head coach.

Enoch Nkwe is a very good coach and, in an ideal world, should be the successor to Boucher. But to say he was discriminated against based on the colour of his skin is ridiculous. It ignores the fact Boucher had more experience and more success coaching at the level below the Proteas and the wicketkeeper/batsman’s immense international knowledge from his playing days.

Three franchise trophies in one season point to Nkwe’s potential, but to equate trophies won in second-tier cricket in the Netherlands, semi-pro cricket or junior weeks, and even a second place in the Canadian T20 league, with Boucher’s achievements is ludicrous. The report also makes no mention of the 3-0 hammering South Africa suffered in India under Nkwe as interim head coach just before Boucher’s arrival.

The SJN could really have done with some advice from an ex cricketer or anyone with some idea of how high-performance sport works. The total lack of expertise in this regard has been made clear by the report. There was an early warning sign of this when legal assistant Sandile July asked why Imran Tahir had not stepped down from the Proteas team to allow another spinner a chance!

I also believe Mr July exhibited a lack of impartiality in his examination of those witnesses who had been implicated. He seemed to implicitly believe that the evidence of the complainants, even those dishonest individuals banned from the game for their involvement in matchfixing, was true.

The allegation made this week that over 250 paragraphs of the complainants’ heads of argument, which were written by July and Fumisa Ngqele, have been simply cut and pasted word-for-word directly into the ombudsman’s report, reflects poorly on the fairness of the SJN process.

These are not just minor matters that need amendment. Most damning of all is Ntsebeza’s own admission in his closing remarks that the evidence presented was not able to be tested. He says he cannot make definitive findings, describing his own conclusions as being “tentative”.

And yet he has happily painted Smith, Boucher, AB de Villiers and various other former players and officials as being racist. The decent thing for Ntsebeza to do would be to pay back half the R7.5 million to CSA for doing half a job, never mind the compensation he might have to fork out for the damage he has done to the reputations of people based on “untested evidence” and “tentative findings”.

“Oh no it’s raining again!” would have been the united cry of all North-West Dragons fans as their team was surely denied a place in the CSA Provincial T20 Knockout final by the weather in Kimberley on Thursday afternoon.

Having bowled superbly to restrict the much-fancied Free State Knights team to just 127 for seven in 19 overs, earlier rain having chopped an over off the innings, North-West openers Eben Botha (21* off 8) and Wesley Marshall (20* off 7) had smashed 42 runs off just 2.3 overs when the rain returned.

And unfortunately the showers were severe enough for the match to be called off with No Result, North-West being left to ponder what might have been as they only needed another 88 runs off 99 balls with all 10 wickets intact for a place in Friday’s final against the KZN Dolphins.

Unfortunately for the Potchefstroom-based team, Free State advance instead due to them having a higher nett run-rate in the tournament as a whole.

Free State had earlier elected to bat first, but struggled to 91 for six after 16 overs as North-West captain Nicky van den Bergh made adroit use of his bowlers to pick up regular wickets, three of them falling to Eldred Hawken.

Paceman Chad Classen created the initial pressure by conceding just 17 runs in his four brilliant overs, and left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy then turned the screw with exceptional figures of two for 12 in his four overs.

Knights captain Pite van Biljon tried to hold the innings together with his 29, but it was only thanks to an incredible 29 not out off just 12 balls by Gerald Coetzee, after the first rain delay, that Free State made it to 127.

Given the blazing start North-West made to their innings though, it would surely not have been enough if the rain had not intervened.