Something special
28 Oct 2010
MIKE GREENAWAY, writing in SA Rugby magazine, says Patrick Lambie is the future of South African rugby.
In the midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, the mink and manure belt of the Garden Province, the favourite sport of Hilton College old boys is to ask their bitter rivals from Michaelhouse how many Springbok rugby players they have produced.
The Balgowan school has spawned war heroes (the flag flown at World War I’s bloody battle of Delville Wood is proudly displayed in one of the eating establishments), politicians, prestigious authors, captains of industry, national cricketers, swimmers and athletes … even Spud Milton (of the John van der Ruit books) went to the stately school modelled so closely on the posh English public schools, but so far the eight rugby fields on the sprawling estate have yet to produce a rugby Springbok.
Perhaps the most genuine indication that the school might at last break its unfortunate duck came in Patrick Lambie’s Grade 11 year. The flyhalf had missed his U16 season because of a serious injury and when he pitched up for training the next year, the flyhalf berth was already secured by the older Guy Cronjé, who was partnered at scrumhalf by his twin brother, Ross (both of whom have gone on to play for the Sharks).
So the coaches asked Pat if he wanted to try fullback. How did he react to changing positions after not having played rugby for a year? By the end of the season he was picked at fullback for SA Schools.
The following year, his matric year, he was in the SA Schools No 15 jersey once more. In fact, he also played KZN Schools rugby and cricket two years in a row, and that elite club can’t have too many members …
As Sharks captain Stefan Terblanche puts it, rather amusingly: ‘The next Michaelhouse old boy who asks me if Pat is going to be their first Springbok, I might have to shoot! But having said that, if he’s not their first Bok, then they will have to wait another 100 years …’
Towards the end of his first year out of school, Lambie made his debut for the Sharks – a 20-minute stint off the bench in a Currie Cup match – and was then drafted into the Super 14 training squad. Midway through the Sharks’ troubled Super 14 tour earlier this year he made his run-on debut.
Lambie took time out from the Sharks to play fullback for the SA U21 team in Argentina and was one of the stand-out performers at the international tournament, finishing up as the second highest points scorer.
He has been a fixture in the Sharks team ever since the Super 14 tour and the only debate around his continued inclusion has been where best to utilise his talent – fullback, centre or flyhalf.
And this, of course, has brought up the old chestnut of whether the Sharks are going to do a ‘Brent Russell’ and produce another ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’, as has allegedly been the story with Frans Steyn and Ruan Pienaar (although this was more the case at Springbok level).
The good news for South African rugby is that young Lambie is being carefully managed by the ever-cautious John Plumtree.
‘There has been good communication between all relevant parties from the word go and that is very important because wherever Patrick plays, he must be positive about it,’ the Sharks coach says. ‘He is still at the stage of his career where he is enjoying the experience simply of playing at this level. Moving from 15, which he knows well, to 12 and then to 10 has been good for him because it has exposed a few minor weaknesses in his game that he otherwise might not have known about. When the novelty wears off and he wants to settle into a position, we will talk about it.’
Interestingly, Lambie says an inspiration for him at school was Steyn and the impact he made first with the Sharks and then with the Springboks at fullback, flyhalf and centre.
‘I looked up to Frans because he gave us schoolboys hope that we could get a break sooner rather than later and excel at the highest level,’ Lambie says.
The softly-spoken youngster conducts himself in interviews with unfailing politeness and good manners. He is as humble and charming a young man as you could possibly chance to meet. But what are his thoughts on the position he would most like to play?
‘I’ve enjoyed 15, 12 and 10 and I don’t yet know which one I’m best at or which one I enjoy the most. But with a bit more time and experience I’ll be able to decide on a position, put my mind to it and stay there,’ he says.‘At fullback I have always enjoyed taking the high ball – even though I’m not the tallest, I like that bit of pressure – and then also the space you have at the back to read the game.
‘At flyhalf, I like being close to the ball and getting my hands on it as much as possible, as well as being able to make decisions and link with the players around me. The same goes for 12, which also has the added attraction of being a major avenue of attack for the opposition, and I’m happy with that because I enjoy tackling.’
The impressive thing about Lambie’s progression from 15 to 12 and then to 10 is that he has got increasingly better the closer he has got to the ball. He was excellent at fullback and when he was moved to 12 questions were asked about the wisdom of the move, but he responded superbly there, and when he was moved to 10 he again met and then surpassed the challenge.
‘I have honestly enjoyed all three positions,’ he says, ‘and maybe it helped that I played 12 after fullback before moving to 10, but the most important thing is that I’ve played a sequence of games in each position. I haven’t played one game here, one game there, and then gone back to the previous position.’
An avid admirer of Lambie is former Springbok and Maritzburg College flyhalf Joel Stransky, and he feels that consultation with experts in the three positions Lambie has played will help make the decision on where he should ultimately settle.
‘First of all, I’d like to say that I’ve enjoyed watching Patrick play, and what has stood out for me is that old indication of how good a player is – the time he seems to have to make decisions that other players don’t,’ Stransky says. ‘He never gets flustered, he never panics. There’s no hint of alarm about his play. He has brilliant skills, a kicking game, tackles very well and, most importantly, he has a wonderful temperament.’
But Stransky suggests that Plumtree sits down with a fullback specialist such as André Joubert, a renowned centre like Dick Muir and a flyhalf of the calibre of Henry Honiball and ask them for an analysis of where Lambie’s skills set is best suited.
‘Sometimes where the player feels he should play and where he’s best suited are not the same,’ Stransky advises. ‘I’ve seen that with Frans Steyn. He wanted to play 10, then 15, but maybe 12 is his best position?’
But where does Stransky feel Lambie should play? ‘The more I think about it, the more I feel that a kid with his talent has to be as close to the ball as possible. I’d play him at flyhalf.’
And is Lambie ready to tour with the Springboks in November? Stransky certainly believes so but Plumtree would prefer the youngster’s Springbok debut to wait a while.
Stransky says: ‘Good enough is old enough. We have a major issue in this country at Springbok level right now and we need youngsters to come through fast and learn the ropes.’
Plumtree is not so sure: ‘Look, he’s unquestionably an international class player. He’s a natural, he’s a very calm young man with an old head on a young body. To be straightforward, he’s a bloody good kid, and is an absolute pleasure to have in your squad.
‘Personally, I don’t think it’s necessary for him to tour in November. A good Super Rugby campaign will grow his confidence, while this end-of-year tour might not be the happiest and I’d hate to see him take a knock. But if they decide to take half a dozen youngsters and he’s one of them, then good on him.’
The theme of Lambie being cool, calm and collected is a recurring one, going way back to his primary school days. His class teacher and sports coach at Clifton school in Durban, Barry Mezher, says he was a gifted sportsman and natural leader to whom his peers naturally gravitated.
‘It stood out for me that at such a young age here was a kid who always put the needs of his team-mates above his own, led by example and deflected attention and praise to others,’ Mezher says. ‘He was empathetic to his peers and could be innovative in finding ways to get the best out of them.’
Mezher adds that Lambie was also an exceptional cricketer: ‘He had the sweetest of timing as a batsman and as a bowler had the discipline and calmness to bowl line-and-length deliveries that irritated batsmen into submission with his accuracy.’
At Michaelhouse, his school masters soon picked up that the best asset of this brilliant sportsman – he was also a very good swimmer – was his temperament. He never got flustered and the bigger the occasion, the better he reacted to pressure.
Alan Redfern, Lambie’s housemaster, says that perhaps the best way to sum him up is to point out how his peers responded to him.
‘When he was announced as head boy he was the unanimous choice by pupils and staff and was given a spontaneous standing ovation, which is rare.’
At the conclusion of his matric year, Redfern says that Lambie had ‘set a new benchmark for the role of head prefect’.
He was involved positively in a number of cultural and social activities at the school. As well as being a chapel server and senior member of the school’s Christian Representative Council, he was the chairman of the Toastmasters Society and served on the school’s Student Representative Council.
Redfern says Lambie was always ‘quietly at the forefront’, avoiding the limelight where possible but when in it, conducting himself with humility.
The balance between sport and academics has continued after school. Lambie is currently in his second year of a BA degree through Unisa, specialising in environmental management. He says it involves his favourite subjects, geography and economics, and it could qualify him one day to be involved in a passion of his: animals and conservation.
In the meantime, Patrick Lambie is living his dream. It is not that long ago that he was one of the barefoot kids running around the Kings Park outer fields playing touch rugby while his parents braaied.
The Lambie family are true Sharks fans, always have been, going back to the early-80s when dad Ian was a stalwart for Berea Rovers and played a handful of games for Natal before a serious knee injury ended his career, while Pat’s grandfather, Nick Labuschagne (Caz Lambie’s dad) is a former president of the Natal Rugby Union and was intricately involved in the administration of the 1995 World Cup. He also played 50-odd games for Natal and five for England. So the game is very much in Pat’s genes.
‘The rugby background in our family helped me make the decision on whether to choose cricket or rugby as my career,’ he says. ‘It ended up being quite easy, really. I love cricket but rugby is my passion.’
– This article first appeared in the October issue of SA Rugby magazine. The November issue is on sale now.
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523 Comments
Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [10] 11 » Show All
28 Oct 2010, 17:15 pm
@OCO(OCO) :
Cheers.
28 Oct 2010, 17:15 pm
@OCO(OCO) :
Kind of like how dancing leads to ***?
28 Oct 2010, 17:17 pm
***
gender
28 Oct 2010, 17:18 pm
Keo is biologically biased.
28 Oct 2010, 17:18 pm
@Agile T*t-Tyrant(Anairetes agilis) :
And you can possibly get cancer from eating twice your body weight of sucrose substitutes.
Water is essential to life as we know it. However too much and you drown.
It’s all relative (as Uncle ALbert said).l
28 Oct 2010, 17:19 pm
@WP Till I Die(WP-Forever) :
Sore ankles?
Sore knees?
Of course theres always my favourite ‘Dirty Dancing’
28 Oct 2010, 17:20 pm
@Agile T*t-Tyrant(Anairetes agilis) :
I mean socially, ugh
28 Oct 2010, 17:21 pm
Well, tonight has proven that there is life on Keo.
I shall now leave before the flak arrives!
28 Oct 2010, 17:21 pm
@OCO(OCO) : 456
camphor cream works for me….
28 Oct 2010, 17:25 pm
@Agile T*t-Tyrant(Anairetes agilis) :
Full body massage is better. With cream, lots of cream …
28 Oct 2010, 18:17 pm
@WP Till I Die(WP-Forever) : amen agree with you 100%
28 Oct 2010, 20:44 pm
TACITUS ! ! !
If you ever read this, i am sending you a huge heartfelt hug.
I admire and respect a person that can come out and show his revulsion and disgust at another human being doing what that sub human did to that dog.
If more people spoke out like you did it would make the authority’s give harsher punishments.
Maybe some one should chop the feckers legs off and let him feel the pain as he lies in the dust.
And yes, i am a radical animal rights activist, which doesnt mean we all vegans and hippies.
28 Oct 2010, 20:48 pm
@gunther(gunther) :
Seriously funny!
28 Oct 2010, 20:48 pm
@Treehugger(Treehugger) : gees, good thing you weren’t here in the morning then you would’ve bust a nerve
28 Oct 2010, 20:49 pm
Gunther @ 44
28 Oct 2010, 20:59 pm
@gunther(gunther) :
Hahahahahaaa…. sharons law!!! FFS what next!
Fell off my soap box.
28 Oct 2010, 21:03 pm
Carefull on that soap box chap.
It’s a slippery place to be.
28 Oct 2010, 21:19 pm
and they tell me i talk ****
anyone care to enlighten specifically what was discussed here today besides that heart wrenching despicable story of abject inhumane inhumanity towards his lesser co-habitable beings
always never ceases to amaze these heart rendering stories of our absolute horror at how humans treat lesser intelligently endowed creatures of this planet, while in the very same breath we shoveling a steak fork full of juicy fatty dead flesh obliterated in the highly humane abattoirs of our incandescent merciful death factories down our absolutely empathetic gullets
28 Oct 2010, 21:33 pm
@skopskiet(yliad) :
lmao @ skop, this silence of the lambie thread was ‘something special’ 
28 Oct 2010, 21:34 pm
@Transformation(Transformation) : was going to be helping out with a baby elephant (couple of weeks old) at a friend and documentary makers animal sanctuary, it had been stolen, can u believe it.
It died before they could get it there, had drunk contaminated water from a container that that had diesel in it.
Was so nice to read a man that is so into his rugby freak out like that, one of my first thoughts was i could just hug this man.
28 Oct 2010, 21:49 pm
They’ve succesfully selectively created the next bokkie boy wunderkind, poor little lead to the slaughter Lambiekins
h’es already the next messiah without even so much as raising a hand or a boot in anger
If I were him I’d start running for the hills and never emerge again till all the immaculate fanfare of adulation has blown over the Tugela River.
28 Oct 2010, 21:59 pm
Yeah one can argue old Tacit-twoshoes does have some little bitty heart pumping in that humane human chest of his
but my next question remains how merciful to the cause of concern for all the bludgeoned blicksemed bloodied beasts all wtacked in pain and obliterated for the merciful plight for human consumption by stuffing them into those bully beef cans of whoopass stacked on the eco friendly Pick n Pay shelves of humane conscience.
28 Oct 2010, 22:04 pm
Have to feel bad for the kid, if he just has a good game and there are no thunderbolts shooting from his eyes while he single handedly destroys wp, everyone will say he is a poodle, hype is bad, makes for unrealistic expectations.
28 Oct 2010, 22:25 pm
@Treehugger(Treehugger) : yoh, what an active imagination boom massuer
‘thunderbolts shooting from his eyes’. Even if he has a pedestrian game and the Sharks happen to win, then it will be praise & adulation for him ad nauseum!
28 Oct 2010, 22:26 pm
animal rights activists that eat animals for breakfast lunch and supper, now thats some high handed authority of animal welfare talking
chop the human feckers legs off for maiming the poor defenseless creature by all means while we nonchalantly sit and idly chit chat over sunday roast as we stuff our overfed mouths with some more dead humanely slaughtered flesh from the fok fok abattoir down the road, round the bend, conveniently outa sight and outa mind.
Why don’t you go get all actively righteous over there where thousands of the ill bred, pain wracked factory fried beasts are humanely put to the slaughter for your well worn pallatable activity?
28 Oct 2010, 22:45 pm
ain’t it just awe inspiring amazing how we humanely endowed sapiens hug trees, chop humans legs off, eat crabs, frogs legs, sea cockroaches, birds eggs, snails, horses, dogs, cats, cows, cows babies, goats and their babies, sheep and their little lambiekins, crocodiles, ostriches and shark for biltong breakfasts, drop napalm bombs on humans, incinerate other humans in gas chambers, hack some others to death over ethnicity or religion, boil some humans in huge pots alive and boil their blood, and commit harikiri, almost all in one fowl awesome human breath.
oh what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and movement how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.
28 Oct 2010, 22:47 pm
@skopskiet(yliad) : you are an extremely unpleasant negative person, never a nice or positive thing to say, believe it or not, everything you say is not gospel, but speaking with you is pointless i have noticed as you suffer from extreme tunnel vision.
and i rarely understand what u are saying when u rant.
28 Oct 2010, 22:56 pm
Madskopdisease.
28 Oct 2010, 22:56 pm
how short are we in the flyhalf department that a kid like patrick lambie is so exalted?
sure, he is cool hand luke, but hardly a naas or a lem when it comes to the kicking or attacking facets of flyhalf play.
hopefully he will develop into a really good international level player.
but..at the moment, he is just a talented kid.
28 Oct 2010, 23:03 pm
its very positive being an animal rights activist that has somebody else put a slug between the sheeps brain so you can stew it or braai it for your sunday lunch, while at same time go @pe sh’t balistic over the shark poachers or the rhino horn and elephant tusk smugglers, I’ll grant you that.
All I’m suggesting is that if you going to actively activate over inhumane injustices, rather consider those injustices just a little closer to home, like right within your refrigerator, and in your gut.
i know its an uncomfortable thought to contemplate but the sheep that got her throat slit for your palatable satisfaction, likewise the cow and calf and chicken and goat, is just as much a live warm blooded feeling creature as the elephant and ill bred ill fed misused creature that needs human protection from other inhumane humans.
Consider your humane humanity, or else your inhumanity, choice is yours at the end of the day. But don’t pretend to be a saint when you doing as much slaughtering as the next.
28 Oct 2010, 23:12 pm
@skopskiet(yliad) : So, which side of the fence are you on, Skopsuster? Do you eat nothing but veggies?
28 Oct 2010, 23:27 pm
@kaksioek(kaksioek) : And perhaps the odd humble pie.
28 Oct 2010, 23:30 pm
yippie you guessed it, that’s the side of the fence I’m sitting on, the lesser amount of suffering that’s possible in this suffering infested world the better if anyone can possibly help it. Not that that’s all that cut n dried to achieve, due to one man’s horse meat is anothers dog meat which is likewise anothers cow meat or someone else’s whale meat, but one can always try, That’s the side of the fence I prefer to butter my toast or crunch my wheatbix.
28 Oct 2010, 23:33 pm
Yes its awefull, but most humans have eaten meat since who knows when, i try not to think how the meat got on my plate.
I detest hunting for fun or sport, but a person that hunts for the pot i dont have a proplem with, i imagine if i had to i would.
So how many animals have you saved, do u pick up strays and take them home, do u go feed starveing ferals where u know they hide, do u do any volunteer work, i know live in town so i would imagine it is the least u could do.
As for me, i have no need to justify to you, apart for the fact my life revolves totally around animal cept when i leave my reality that i chose and watch rugby, which is fantastic, because watching rugby is total escapism from some nasty stuf.
28 Oct 2010, 23:37 pm
@skopskiet(yliad) : Well good for you Skoppie. I admire the fact that you live by your principles. I couldn’t do it myself.
28 Oct 2010, 23:41 pm
humble pie and tree hugging go hand in hand like skipping around the may pole. Its those Nazi shark conservationists that cry croc tears when one them cold blooded merciless killers get the chop while they brazenly brandish their sawn off shot gun in search of human flesh for their gallows pole or zebra hide to hang over their mantle piece you gotta be worrying about.
28 Oct 2010, 23:44 pm
@skopskiet(yliad) : Who’s going to take the cup on Saturday Skop?
28 Oct 2010, 23:48 pm
i didnt understand what u just said, please rephrase or something, am serious.
28 Oct 2010, 23:51 pm
ta ta kaksoeker
animal saving is admirable as well we know all creatures great and small the lord god made them all and everyone including the meercat and the hornbill the leopard and the aardvaak all need some soft human hearted conscience to get them through the deadly maze of suffering. But then sheeps and goats and calves and salmon and turkeys and geese and porcupines could do with some emancipatory saving just the same, or are they somehow excluded from our saving grace?.
28 Oct 2010, 23:55 pm
@skopskiet(yliad) : I don’t know skop – those porcupines are just so delicious.
28 Oct 2010, 23:55 pm
@charo – the wp giant(charo) : it’s all those pretentious twits from Michaelhouse that are sooo eager to see Lambie become a Bok so they can break their duck. Now they are talking him up to the hilt, the same way the Bishops fools talked up Nick Koster and called him the ‘real deal’ and said he had bok written all over him, where is he now?
29 Oct 2010, 00:02 am
WP gonna be having Tjarkie biltong for din dins saturday arvies, the stoopid Tjarkfish in the aquarium already seen to that.
No worries huggie drlin just my lame attempt at some otherwise dry humour, just you keep that soft human compassionate heart beating inside that humane conscientious chest of yours, just try also extending it to all Gods creatures great and small, especially those you can actually do something about their inhumanely conditioned plight.
29 Oct 2010, 00:06 am
lol, have done plenty porcipines, look i am no good at this argueing stuf, i just know i am very good at rehabilitateing damaged animals and that is why they are brought to me, have just finished with a hadeda and realeased it, u know its strong enough when u dread every feed cos u think its goimg to break your hand. Anyway my speciality is *******, am off now, useing the cel is hard work, sleep tight be kinder to people that dont share yr views.
29 Oct 2010, 00:07 am
@Transformation(Transformation) :
nice to see the reply buttons working again.
michaelhouse = “more pressure from the rear boys” 8)
@skopskiet(yliad) :
skoppie – thank goodness your predictions generally have been wrong.
cheers boys – hitting the sack
29 Oct 2010, 00:10 am
Sharks to locate that missing can of whoopass and open it. Skop to eat nothing for a week due to the foot in his mouth. Treehugger to die wondering. Night all.
29 Oct 2010, 00:10 am
@Treehugger(Treehugger) :
should have let the hadeda meet it’s maker – irritating at 0500 in the morning.
29 Oct 2010, 00:18 am
@charo – the wp giant(charo) : very lol, but not as bad as as ******* banging around on a tin roof to get your attention. Night guys and S H A R K S S S S.
29 Oct 2010, 01:03 am
kindness is for may pole skipping tree huggers, harsh reality is for those willing to open up their carnivorous conditioned eyes, who think saving one wounded buffalo is akin to redemption from eating a thousand defenseless lambs and calves and their unsuspecting mommy’s
Its good and noble saving the stray dog and the wounded wild jack rabbit or vulture, it may very well be quite a fair bit nobler not putting to death and gurgling on the suffering and inhumanity of obliviously ignoring how and why the poor rare done steak got onto your high society well wishing animal saving plate and down your obliviously unconscionable throat, and through your gut and gall stone sensitive intestines, and all for what? A baseless Bavarian blood lust, a fickle fallacy that humans were designed by evolution as carnivorous barbarians salivating over blood and sinewy flesh between their herbivorous jaws? You gotta be kidding yourself that you some animal messiah when you condemning them by the thousands to the deadly humaneless death chambers for your whimsical palatable pleasure in the roasting ovens, spits and barbecue’s of humanly inhumanity over his own nature given kingdom.
Yep its hard work trying teaching merciful morality via cel phone, guess enoughs enough.
.
29 Oct 2010, 05:51 am
What impresses me is he seams to have loads of time to do things. His catch of the high ball in the semis was as good as the kick was poor.
He is not as good as Elton at poles but neither are as good as Elgar Watts in backline play.
29 Oct 2010, 08:18 am
“57. Transformation(Transformation) :
October 28th, 2010 at 11:00 am
@Tacitus(Tacitus) : you care more about dogs than people Tac?”
That’s an odd statement…from an odd person.
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