CSA miss own deadline on Cobras transformation issue

“I can’t comment on what goes on right at the top but I can certainly say there’s great talent in South Africa.” – Robin Peterson focuses on the positive.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

CRICKET South Africa (CSA) seem set to miss their self-imposed deadline for getting to the bottom of a transformation target transgression last month.

The Cobras’ XI for their first-class fixture against the Warriors at Newlands included seven black players — one more than the stipulated number.

But only two of them, fast bowlers Thando Ntini and Tladi Bokako, were black African — one fewer than the target.

“CSA has noted the submission by Western Cape Cricket [WCC] in lieu of a request for a deviation from the administrative conditions,” a CSA spokesperson said at the time.

But, according to Cobras coach Ashwell Prince, there was nothing “in lieu” about how he had approached the issue.

“I followed the protocol,” Prince told TMG Digital.

CSA also said they would “launch a further enquiry into this incident and will consider all the related and relevant information in order to arrive at a decision about the strength and the validity of the argument by WCC”, and that, “It is anticipated that the investigation may take up to 14 days.”

That was on October 29 — the 14 days expires on Tuesday.

Asked on Monday night whether CSA had reached a decision, a spokesperson said only, “We will announce the outcome once we have concluded the matter.”

Pressed for a better answer, he became defensive.

The Cobras squad contains four other black Africans — batters Aviwe Mgijima and Simon Khomari, and fast bowlers Akhona Mnyaka and Mthiwekhaya Nabe — while another, spinner Tsepo Ndwandwa, has played for them this season.

None were injured when the game against the Cobras started at Newlands on October 28.

Mgijima has scored just 39 runs in five first-class innings this season while Khomari made two and four in his only match of the campaign.

Mnyaka took 1/30 in the nine overs he bowled on his debut in January, his only first-class match to date.

Nabe also last played for the Cobras in January, and has taken 47 wickets in 31 first-class games at an average of 43.27.

Ndwandwa has claimed three wickets in the two first-class games he has played for the Cobras this season.

In cricket terms, none of those players are banging down the door for a place in the Cobras team.

Who might have been left out to make room for another black African is another consideration.

Five members of the top six who played average more than 30 this summer, with Kyle Verreynne topping the list at 70.66 and Matthew Kleinveldt weighing in at 56.00.

The only merely black — not black African — fast bowler in the side, Dane Paterson, has taken 18 wickets at 21.55 in four games.

The other three members of the team, Zubayr Hamza, George Linde and Dane Piedt, the captain, were all freshly back from South Africa’s poor Test series in India.

It was thus in the national interest that they played. 

And in the Cobras’ interest: before that match they had lost to the Lions and drawn with the Titans and Dolphins.

The game against the Warriors was also drawn, leaving the Cobras second from bottom in the standings.

There was, therefore, no good cricket case to be made for forcing an out-of-form player into a side that needed a win at the expense of someone better equipped for their role.

But, as the Springboks proved emphatically at the men’s World Cup in Japan, quotas can lead to triumph because they open eyes that were previously closed.

There’s a good argument to be made that the Boks would not have done as well as they did had teams not been forced to pick black players.

Decades of selection bias — consciously or not — robbed black players of their opportunities.

With their presence guaranteed, they could not be unfairly sidelined.

And, what do you know, they turned out to be among the best players South Africa had.

That Siya Kolisi, Makazole Mapimpi and Cheslin Kolbe merit their places is beyond question.

As is the likelihood that, without quotas, they would never have been given the chance to prove it.  

It’s a happy ending cricket is still chasing, and the dwindling confidence in CSA’s current leadership won’t bring it any closer. 

Perhaps that vital task should be left to people who know what they’ve doing, like Warriors coach Robin Peterson.

“I can’t comment on what goes on right at the top but I can certainly say there’s great talent in South Africa,” Peterson told TMG Digital during the now controversial Newlands match.

He is about 18 months from completing a Masters in sport directorship at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Peterson hasn’t yet decided what his dissertation topic will be, but he has an idea.

“Maybe I’ll do it on ethical transformation,” he said. “Is there such a thing as ethical transformation?

“I’m living in a situation I can write about, so why not.”

Given South Africa’s past and present, Peterson won’t want for research material.

“It’s very difficult to heal wounds, but if this is your only skill in life it’s very difficult to kill people’s dreams.

“You have to give them opportunities if they’re good enough to play.”

It seems a simple statement, but South Africans will know just how complex it is.

First published by TMG Digital. 

Where the World Cup matters most: on the street

Siya Kolisi lifted the trophy for the umpteenth time, but the fire in his eyes was fresh and the rawness in his roar was real.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

NOT for the first time since November 2, Faf de Klerk flashed his famous underwear at the crowd. Not for the last time, surely, thousands gave raucous approval.

They were gathered on Cape Town’s Grand Parade on Monday, and of a mood to share the Springboks’ joy at winning the men’s World Cup.

De Klerk duly took his place on the stage next to Herschel Jantjies, who offered him a fresh king protea.

A flower? For a regte egte oke from Nelspruit? A Waterkloof alumnus? The skater punk scrumhalf who many feel should have his bloody box kicks, well, boxed and shipped somewhere the sun don’t shine?    

“Nah,” De Klerk seemed to say Jantjies with a mildly disdainful shake of his head.

So Jantjies nipped round De Klerk’s back and quietly tucked the stem of the bloom into the waistband of the blond bliksem’s shorts.

All was revealed when De Klerk turned around, and hoards laughed — not at De Klerk but with him. So did he when he got the joke.

Nothing can go wrong when you’ve won the World Cup.

Even if it did on the last leg of the Boks’ nationwide victory celebration: one of their buses broke down on the N2 after they left the city centre for Langa. Briefly, that is — soon the tour of triumph resumed.

As the convoy oozed away from the City Hall it comprised — besides the must-have swarm of motorcycle outriders — the players’ and their families’ bus, another carrying South African Rugby Union staff, a media bus, three large luxury coaches, two of them emblazoned with the Boks’ “Stronger Together” slogan, five unmarked 4x4s, nine South African police vehicles, a three-car blue-light brigade, seven metro cops cars, and two ambulances.

And yet Damian de Allende was comfortable enough amid the clamour to go barefoot.

Cheslin Kolbe was the prow of the good ship Springbok as it inched away, the William Webb Ellis Cup gleaming goldly from his outstretched arms as the human ocean was parted by barricades just enough to allow the bus passage.

How many were there? Many more than enough to bring emotion shuddering back into the veins of hairy, hardened hacks who thought they had long been irreparably calcified with cynicism.

“Waar’s daai blerrie All Blacks nou,” one man in the mosh pit moving slowly next to the players’ bus asked his fellow celebrant, a reference to some Capetonians’ preference for supporting New Zealand over South Africa as a protest against racism that harks back to apartheid.

You could have had any colour jersey you wanted. As long as it was green and gold.

One man wearing exactly that smuggled himself onto the wrong side of the barricade. He was clearly on a mission, and soon it was revealed.

“Stop corruption,” read the hand-written cardboard sign he held up for a few seconds — before security staff swooped to shoo him back where he belonged.

Two women somewhere in their 50s brought up the rear, waving flags that didn’t exist and dancing to tunes that had yet to be heard when the only people who were allowed to play for the Boks were the same colour they were: white.

People clogged much of every street long before the Boks rolled slowly past them, and when their champions finally arrived they thundered their adulation.

Siya Kolisi, the champion of these champions, has taken his place at the front of the bus to hoist the trophy umpteen times these past few days, but when he did it again coming down Loop Street the fire in his eyes was fresh and the rawness in his roar was real.

The wave rolled over, past and through the usual suspects of life on Cape Town’s streets: the homeless, the addicted, the merely poor. They looked on, still homeless, still addicted, still poor. A World Cup win will not save these souls from the thrust of society’s cold shoulder. 

After the fantastical phalanx had made its way a block or two the road behind it cleared enough to reveal, trying to nose along in the wake of all that, a chicken wholesaler’s truck.

The frown on the driver’s face eased when he saw some tarmac where, moments before, the parade had prevailed.

But only until he looked further ahead to see, barrelling brassily, boisterously, bolshily,  beautifully, even, straight down Darling Street and directly at him and his truck, the West London All Stars minstrel group in full and fabulous flow.

The truck stopped. The driver rested an elbow on the sill of his open window, put a hand under his chin, and waited.

’Cause this is Africa.

First published by Times SELECT.

Desmond and the Springboks do it one more time with feeling

“Good afternoon, molweni, aweh ma se kind.” – Siya Kolisi hits the right note saying hello to Cape Town.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

NOTHING can be the same after Desmond Tutu has danced to Leon Schuster’s Hie Kommmie Bokke on the steps of Cape Town City Hall.

And there the best advertisement for religion was on Monday, all 88 years and not many centimetres of him, busting his moves as the statue of Nelson Mandela looked on not knowing quite what to make to it all.

“Hie kommie Bokke …

“Hie kommie Bokke …

“Hoes!

“Bring vir ons die Wêreld Beker!”

Happily, the multitude crammed into the Grand Parade across Darling Street knew what to do: they cheered the Arch to high heaven. 

He had made a dignified exit by the time Early B took the stage to deliver Back die Bokke, and a good thing too.

“Ek is agter in die yard …

“By my bra se spot …

“Nuh!

“Ons geniet ons met ’n tjop and dop …

“Whuh!

“Dinge gaan net af …

“Vrouens kyk na die toddlers …

“En ons almal wag vir die game van die …

“Bokke!”

The rapper, who looks like he spends at least as much time in the gym as Tendai Mtawarira, strutted his stuff with the Springboks themselves lined up behind him.

Clearly, they had heard it all before enough times to have learnt the lyrics. 

Then it was Siya Kolisi’s turn to address the masses.

“Good afternoon, molweni, aweh ma se kind.”

Even the ears on Mandela’s statue would have heard the roar that earned.

“It’s been a tough journey — we’ve been together for 20 weeks — but I think this week has been the most amazing one; coming back and celebrating with you guys.

“Your message has really been amazing.”

Of course, he had a message in return.

“Look how we’re all different — different races, different backgrounds. But we came together for South Africa.

“Just take a look around you. Look how you are making it special for us.

“It’s time for us South Africans to stop fighting, stop arguing and move forward as a country.”

This being the last leg of a celebration that has taken the all singing, all dancing Boks to Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape in the cause of marking their 32-12 triumph over England in the men’s World Cup final in Yokohama on November 2, Kolisi has had plenty of opportunity to practise his prose.

Not that it showed. There was no questioning his sincerity. The man believes his mantra, perhaps because he is his own best example of the magic conjured when it is lived.

Asked earlier at a press conference what the players could do to bottle the joy of the moment and move South Africa’s society forward, Cheslin Kolbe seemed as stunned as if a pass to him had been intercepted.

“Jis; I’m not in the government or anything,” Kolbe said. “I’m just on the field and living my dream.”

But he recovered well enough, and was soon bolting for the tryline.

“Whatever we can do as players we will do to try and put smiles on kids’ and adults’ faces.

“It’s the inches, the little pieces, like that that can really make a big difference in someone’s life.

“And I’m sure that the rest of South Africa, from the president down, they will lay the foundation going forward.

“We have a lot of hope in South Africa, and I’m sure we can get stronger together. That’s what we believe.

“I’m positive for South Africa — I know we will stand together.”

As the Arch might have said, amen to that.

First published by TMG Digital.

Use it or lose it: we won’t have this moment again

Celebrate, the beloved country. You’ve earned the right to feel better than you have since Thabo Mbeki fell off the bus. But don’t waste this triumph.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

ONLY once has the points margin in a rugby World Cup final loomed larger than it did in Yokohama on Saturday.

But never before have a team won the World Cup after losing a pool game.

Never have the Springboks scored more points in a final.

Never have they lost a final, a distinction only they enjoy among the five finalists.

Never had they scored a try in a final.

Never, still, has a try been scored against them in a final.

Never have a team won more World Cups.

Never have a side won the southern hemisphere championship and the World Cup in the same year.

Never have …

Bugger all that. 

Nevermind the objective facts of the matter.

Never have a team looked more determined to win than Siya Kolisi’s unstoppable band of blood brothers.

Never have their opponents looked more devastated at that determination than England.

Never did anyone, least of all England, imagine the previously dour, methodical, predictable, defensive South Africans would throw it all in the air like they just didn’t care and play the kind of joyous rugby they did when they were barefoot and 10 years old with no-one watching.

Never, from the opening confrontation until the final gong, was the result in even a smidgen of doubt.

Never have more happy, happy, happy tears been shed by South Africans in the cause of mere sport.

Never did South Africans expect to see so many of those tears flowing from the hard, unflinching, shard-shaped eyes of Daniel Johannes Vermeulen.

Duane Vermeulen, the Boks’ matchwinning No. 8, stood there — the sweat he had won from the contest shining like a medal on the vast slab of his forehead gleaming some 1.93 metres in the sky, his mighty arms attached to meaty hands now clasped behind a massive, hairy, bearded head — and sobbed. Openly and proudly and fok julle almal.

Vermeulen’s tears disappeared into his muddied, bloodied jersey. And into the hearts of all who shared his passion, where they will stay forever.

You could tell this story just as well in short, sharp exclamations as in long and winding sentences: 32-bloody-12! Two tries to none! A scrum that was an irrisistable force and an immovable object all in one! Makazole Mapimpi’s bulletproof confidence! Cheslin Kolbe’s otherworldly brilliance! Handré Pollard’s pulseless precision! Kolisi’s serene selflessness! Rassie Erasmus’ sangoma sensibilities! Jérôme Garcès hitherto unseen competence!

But why wouldn’t you want to linger on this triumph as long as you could, and then a little longer? Celebrate, the beloved country. You’ve earned the right to feel better than you have since Thabo Mbeki fell off the bus, and you’ve earned it the hard way.

You can’t eat the World Cup or live in it or wear it or have it pay you a living wage.

Winning it won’t bring back the people we murder every few years because they have come from somewhere else in Africa, nor resurrect the women we murder every day for daring to think how they live their lives shouldn’t be controlled by men, nor stop us from preying on children for reasons too sick to get into.

Rugby won’t rid us of the wilfully, brazenly useless government we elected — yes, that’s our fault — nor spare us a shamelessly illiberal opposition that stands for nothing except whatever it is the government is against — thanks, the middle class, for nothing — nor stop the only vaguelly left-wing party from becoming an ever unfunnier joke — it’s hard to laugh at seething hate.

The World Cup won’t make Eskom do their jobs, nor will it convince the people we need to convince of the bleeding obvious — that we need a better plan for making sure we have enough water than simply praying for rain.

The privileged will still be privileged. The poor will still be poor. The zombie that is apartheid, dead only for the time it takes people to bother to vote, the rest of the time rudely alive in every real sense, will still be out there. 

For all that, what happened in Yokohama on Saturday could change things. It kindles a small flame of hope that, just maybe, South Africa isn’t doomed to be remembered as the country that betrayed itself.

What chance this will make the homed see the homeless as the fellow human beings they are and not, as too many of them do currently, as filth to be swept into someone else’s streets?

Or that those who have too much will understand why they are despised, and do something about it?

Or that the powerful will become accountable to those who lend them — not give them — that power?

Like we said, that flame of hope is small. But, for now, it lives.

In 1995, when we lived in some kind of Disney movie, and in 2007, when we still thought everything would be OK, winning the World Cup wasn’t what it is now.

It’s already a cliché that the champions of 2019 are significantly more black than their predecessors, that they look a lot more like the nation the marketing people say they represent.

Fair enough. But we’re in real trouble if we still need to make the point that South Africa does not have a future if that future is not, mostly, black. Let’s hear all those arguments against affirmative action selection now. And let’s see if anyone has the balls to admit that quotas work, that without them what happened in Yokohama on Saturday would never have happened, that all Kolisi needed to be what he is was the genuine opportunity to be it.

Moments like this don’t come often. For some, they don’t come at all.

You must be blessed indeed, Mzansi, for this is your third chance to get this right.

Never, surely, will you have it again.

This time, don’t waste it.

First published by Times SELECT.

Rassie makes a plan: at scrumhalf, at fullback, in the pack …

“We’re in the process of evolving from just being a grunting, bulking, running-over-you team.” – Rassie Erasmus

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in London

SCRUMHALF is a necessary evil of rugby, a position that needs to be filled for the damn straight but unloved reason that somebody has to shovel the ball from the forwards to the backs.

And then Faf de Klerk arrives to spear tackle that notion into touch with some of the most creative, rivetting play yet seen from someone in a No. 9 jersey.

Thing is, De Klerk is among the star players who won’t run out for the Springboks against England at Twickenham on Saturday.

Some of the others are fullback Willie le Roux, wing Cheslin Kolbe and loose forward Francois Louw.

They are all in rude health. But, even more rudely, they are unavailable because the match is outside World Rugby’s window for Tests.

So a boer had to make a plan, and despite that fact that scrumhalf Embrose Papier has been on the bench for the Boks’ last two games, the earth will not move for him on Saturday — he is again among the replacements.

Instead, Ivan van Zyl has cracked the nod. Why?

“It’s an obvious question that a lot of people will ask,” the boer who had to make that plan, Bok coach Rassie Erasmus, said on Thursday after announcing his team.

“I just think that [with] conditions and the tactical way England play, Ivan is maybe a better fit to start.

“Embrose is a more instinctive player, which is great on hard grounds.

“I think he’ll definitely have an impact on this game, [but] in these conditions and the tactical way we want to play against England, Ivan is a better choice.”

Did Van Zyl, who has played three Tests, all this year, but is more conservative — limited, even — than his peers have the varying skills to cope with the challenge?

“In my experience of these conditions you don’t need a lot of versatility,” Erasmus said, a backhanded compliment if ever there was one.

“You have to be very smart tactically, and you have to control things sometimes with the boot depending what the weather does.”   

Thunder grumbled over London on Thursday and intermediate showers throughout the day added grimness to the greyness of the skies.

But Saturday, the forecast says, should by dry and partly cloudy. 

Whatever the weather, it will be a Red Letter day for Damian Willemse, who will start at fullback for the first time.

“We’ve always had Willie le Roux available, and that’s a luxury,” Erasmus said.

“Luckily Damian has been with us for most of the Test matches and he’s very comfortable in the set-up.

“You have to start a Test match somewhere and I don’t think it gets much bigger than Twickenham against England.”

Then there’s what Erasmus described as, “Jislaaik — there’s four locks!”

But one of them, Pieter-Steph du Toit will spend “probably about 40” minutes in the tight five before being moved to flank.

That’s Erasmus’ plan to ease back into the fray all 2.05 metres of Lood de Jager, who has been out with torn pectoral since May 12 and has been named on the bench.

Still another part of the blueprint was the bigger work in progress, as Erasmus explained: “We’re in the process of evolving from just being a grunting, bulking, running-over-you team.”

The XV shows seven changes from the side that started South Africa’s last match, against New Zealand at Loftus Versveld on October 6. Did all the unnecessary tinkering irk Erasmus? 

“When we accepted the Test match we knew what the rules were,” he said. “It can’t annoy us after we’ve accepted the Test.”

At least the missing players will come back to the fold for the remaining games of a tour, against France, Scotland and Wales, that ends on November 24.

Eddie Jones and England have bigger problems, what with their ranks decimated by injury.

Consequently their loose trio have only 10 caps between them, and their props have started just four Tests.

So, amid all that uncertainty, is Jones being silly to chuck Dylan Hartley and Owen Farrell into that mix as, of all things, co-captains?

Erasmus saw that one coming: “To comment on what other coaches do is sometimes the wrongest thing you can do.

“It’s different cultures and different ways of doing things. He’s a smart coach.

“He’s beaten the Springboks with a Japanese team [34-32 at the 2015 World Cup], so I shouldn’t sit here and comment on anything he’s doing.”

Besides, Erasmus quipped, people could look at his team and say, “between your 9 and 15 you’ve got two or three caps”.

Make that 122, in fact, Rassie. Jones won’t be the only smart man at Twickenham on Saturday.

South Africa (name, province, Test caps, Test points):

15. Damian Willemse (Western Province, 3, 0)

14. Sbu Nkosi (Sharks, 3, 10 – 2t)

13. Jesse Kriel (Blue Bulls, 36, 50 – 10t)

12. Damian de Allende (Western Province, 33, 20 – 4t)

11. Aphiwe Dyantyi (Golden Lions, 9, 30 – 6t)

10. Handré Pollard (Blue Bulls, 35, 293 – 3t, 55c, 53p, 3d)

9. Ivan van Zyl (Blue Bulls, 3, 0)

8. Warren Whiteley (Golden Lions , 21, 15 – 3t)

7. Duane Vermeulen (Spears, Japan, 42, 15 – 3t)

6. Siya Kolisi (captain, Western Province, 37, 25 – 5t)

5. Pieter-Steph du Toit (Western Province, 42, 20 – 4t)

4. Eben Etzebeth (Western Province, 73, 15 – 3t)

3. Frans Malherbe (Western Province, 25, 0)

2. Malcolm Marx (Golden Lions, 20, 20 – 4t)

1. Steven Kitshoff (Western Province, 33, 5 – 1t)

Replacements:

16. Bongi Mbonambi (Western Province, 10 – 2t)

17. Thomas du Toit (Sharks, 5, 0)

18. Wilco Louw (Western Province, 11, 0)

19. RG Snyman (Blue Bulls, 8, 0)

20. Lood de Jager (Blue Bulls, 36, 20 – 4t)

21. Embrose Papier (Blue Bulls, 4, 0)

22. Elton Jantjies (Golden Lions, 29, 223 – 2t, 42c, 43p)

23. André Esterhuizen (Sharks, 5, 0)