Folklore has spoken … Boks by 15
27 Sep 2012
MARK KEOHANE, in Business Day Sport Monthly, writes it will be the Boks by 15 against the Aussies at Loftus on Saturday. At least that’s what history says.
Perception too often is accepted as fact. The perception of excellence in Springbok rugby is an illusion. The fact is the Springboks lose a lot of Test matches and have done so consistently over the last century.
They have a win percentage that has on occasion threatened 65% but is closer to 60%. It has always been this way. There have been some magnificent teams. Equally there have been some shockers, who have taken beatings abroad and been humiliated at home.
Time dulls the memory. Results are forgotten, folklore ensures only the good times are remembered and the good in one era become very good. The 30 metre kick to beat the All Blacks is now 60 metres. The tough men of the early 1900s were man mountains and when the current pretenders deliver a depressing result, the obvious is to hanker back to the days when Bok midfielders were more imposing than town marshalls – all 76 kilograms of them.
The modern player would not survive the amateur era. ‘In my day,’ says a player, who forgets he ever lost a Test.
‘Steak, chips and a bottle of wine,’ says another. ‘That was the pre-Test meal.’ Those were the days apparently when men were men, the Springboks were something mystical and pasta was something only the Italians ate.
And so we romance the game, listen to the stories told by those who were there, who saw the 60 metre kick, although it could have been 70 metres and take comfort that the Springboks, if not today, then most days were destroyers of opposition dreams and the ultimate challenge in world rugby.
‘You win in the Republic. Then you can call yourself a rugby player. The South African public acknowledges you can play … boy then you can play.’
You’ve heard them all …
‘A wounded Bok is a dangerous animal … There is nothing as imposing as a Bok team written off … Beware the mighty Boks … Wait till you get to altitude …’
Then we recall a glory moment when the Boks were given no chance of victory and won; when the world dismissed the challenge of those giants in green and gold and were forced to concede the greatness of those rugby men from the Republic.
The storytelling goes beyond rugby. Historically, it has been a life identity. A Springbok … it is what every white boy dreams to become. Post apartheid it is what every South African boy wants to be.
In sporting isolation the legend rose more than it grew. Mortals were immortal and no team could claim anything until they had proved it in the Republic.
Thus, for 20 years, the Boks were the best team in the world. Our rugby was of superior quality; our players dominated every South African media World XV.
Our boys kicked 70 metre penalties (forget the small matter of altitude). Those blokes overseas, they can’t even knock them over from 50 (forget the small matter of sea level).
The television images don’t lie.
The rugby media, be it in print, on television or radio, reinforce the legend.
‘You can’t call yourselves the world champions until you beat the Boks.’ That’s our response to New Zealand’s claim to have won the first ever World Cup in 1987.
And then we hosted the 1995 World Cup final and beat the All Blacks 15-12 in a final that went into extra-time. Andrew Mehrtens, ironically born in Durban, had the chance to win it for New Zealand with a drop goal attempt from 20 metres out and right in front. His kick, with less than a minute to play of normal time, missed and the game ended 9-all.
It was God’s will, said the older folk. It was written in the stars said the team management. There was no way we could lose, said the players. A greater force was guiding them.
And don’t forget that when a Jew plays for the Boks, that’s even greater confirmation defeat is never a consideration.
The All Blacks, a year later in 1996, beat the Boks four times in five, with three of the wins in South Africa. They won in Cape Town, Durban and in Pretoria.
But when they lost the last of the five Tests in Johannesburg, order was restored and the Boks had again shown the Kiwis and the world just who was the best.
As the legend grew, so too did the belief that nothing but an emphatic victory every Saturday would suffice. A failure to deliver was treated with disgust; apparently such was the rarity.
‘How? We are the Boks … We don’t lose.’
But we do, too often when reality is measured against perception.
‘Not in my day,’ screams a newspaper headline. Another of yesterday’s heroes has given up on the jersey he once wore as symbol of superiority in everything rugby and most things generally.
‘I don’t watch the kids of today. They’re soft. I’d rather mow my lawn.’
The media fuels the frenzy. Another of the all-time greats, with a Test record of nine wins in 17, says he is embarrassed to call himself a Bok if the lot that just disgraced the jersey are still called Boks.
He is so disgusted at the Boks losing to Scotland he tells the media he is considering giving back his Bok blazer.
‘Scotland!’
Our game is in crisis. Legends want to mow the lawn and give back their prized green and gold Bok jersey.
‘It’s the blacks,’ say some. ‘They’ve destroyed everything and now they’ve even destroyed our rugby.’
Another of those giants of yesteryear is inspired to let the nation know there won’t be a future for the Boks by the year 2000.
The team will be black, they will be called something else and they will play in another colour jersey is his prophecy. But he no longer objects because at least the legacy of the green jersey, the Bok and the King’s crown won’t suffer more embarrassment.
‘This lot … in my day … when the game still had scrums, when a punch sorted the kings from the queens and when players could run, pass, dummy, side step and tackle … In my day.’
Bok rugby is again in crisis, screams another newspaper front-page lead story.
Apparently another legend of yesteryear is embarrassed. He is even thinking of moving to Australia because if he had ever produced such a passionless display he would have fled out of fear for his life; alternatively he would have done what men of those days did and claimed himself unworthy of the jersey and all things South Africa. He too would have fled the country, but the measure of his quality is that it would have been before they kicked him out.
The great grandfather is sullen. The grandfather tells the son it is because of the hurt at the Boks losing to Australia.
The blacks and ANC government are no longer to blame. It’s the cash. Professionalism and money are the evils.
The players are spoilt and greedy. Then the grandfather tells the eight year old. ‘Ah you would have loved it … Victor Matfield (paaaaleeeeeese). He wouldn’t have lasted a minute. Frik du Preez, now that is a lock. A giant of a man. Taller than anything these days, stronger, heavier and quicker than Habana. He could run, tackle, kick and pass. And boy could he scored tries, and he could drink.’
The boy logs onto the internet and wishes it was Frik out there earlier in the day.
The Boks he believed could not lose were not the real Boks.
The headline demands change. The coach must go; those imposters in green and gold must go. Alternatively, rugby in South Africa, as it was once known, will be dead.
Another of yesterday’s heroes says he fears the rest of the world thinks of us as Wales. He says there is no future for the game and he gives his 10 point plan to restore order the next week. It involves kicking out half the team and replacing the coach.
‘In my day,’ he tells the reporter. ‘Doc Craven would not have tolerated this. That guy’s career would be over. Those were the standards Craven demanded. This legend then boasts about the physicality of the Boks of his era and the brutality of the tackles and the magic ways of the wings and the length of penalty goals our flyhalves used to have to kick … in the wet, with a heavy leather ball, into a wind (not the breeze we get today … a wind) and in conditions that were mudbaths … not the carpets you call a rugby field.
Oh, and in those days you played for 80 minutes, he adds. You got up after being knocked out and you played. You broke your collar bone and you played. That was what the jersey meant to him and his teammates.
Now guys last 50 minutes and even that is too much because it is so easy to play club rugby in Japan for outrageous sums of money. It’s rugby’s blasphemy.
This legend too is thinking of heading to Australia where rugby union’s not even the first choice sport; yet those okes still beat us. What next?’
The national coach fronts the media, as if on trial for treason. A nation has been lied to, betrayed and insulted.
The coach promises the players will work harder, restore credibility and be true to the history of the jersey.
We hold our breath, we pat ourselves on the back that even in these foreign and dark times we can show such loyalty and we vow to watch the Boks the following week.
The grandson asks the grandfather if we can win.
‘We are the Boks,’ he says. ‘We don’t lose.’
And the grandson smiles. Order has been restored.
The legacy of the Boks is not dead. The game apparently is no longer in crisis and we will not be the Wales of rugby.
He logs onto the Internet and smiles even more. The legends of yesteryear won’t be going to Australia after all and one of the finest legends has laughed off reports that the Boks are a team that historically loses 40 percent of their Tests.
‘Not in my day,’ he has told the reporter. ‘And definitely not on Saturday. Boks to take it by 15 because we never lose.’
– This article first appeared in the October issue of Business Day Sport Monthly. The magazine is distributed free with Business Day newspaper on the second last Friday of each month.
703 Comments
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27 Sep 2012, 12:49 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-310: Defeated and shown up with facts and videos, now you resort to insults and sulking, what a way to go champ. I’m still awaiting a video clip of a bigger SA inside center cutting defenses to pieces with stepping or am I gonna wait forever cause it doesn’t exist?
27 Sep 2012, 12:49 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-349:
Indeed, I think it was 1992 or 1993 that Transvaal won the Super 10, the Currie Cup, the Lion Cup and the Night Series all in one year.
27 Sep 2012, 12:49 pm
@XhosaKid-331:
Neil Back wasn’t Woodwards first choice as he considered him too small for his game plan. It was only injuries that opened the door for him.
27 Sep 2012, 12:50 pm
@WP-Forever-340:
who was the bloke for wp who missed the conversion in 89. I was kakking my pants at the thought of losing that game after dominating for long periods and not getting any points on the board.
what was the final score…19-19?
27 Sep 2012, 12:51 pm
@rangerman-312: now, imagine how much those extra 5 kilos would have taken away from waht he was good at.
27 Sep 2012, 12:53 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-354:
Riaan Gouws
27 Sep 2012, 12:54 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-336: Funny that… I seem to remember him making the starting XV for the Boks against Wales not too long back… Back when Stormers actually let him play as no 1 inside centre before an ideal phenotype of blonde physical superiority returned from a not too entirely successful sojourn in the Emerald Isle…
His little midget undercarriage seemed to do a farken good job on Jamie Roberts. Better than the fatty who took the field against BI Lions as one of the madman coach’s more “inspired” picks, certainly and at least as good as the current Bok Captain subsequent to that…
27 Sep 2012, 12:54 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-354:
Riaan Gouws. It was 16-16.
27 Sep 2012, 12:54 pm
@XhosaKid-351:
i have asked you politely to ignore me as i have nothing whatsoever in common with you. Starting off with “small willey syndrome”.
i will say that you should go and youtube Ettienne Botha, a remind yourself that he too was never a bok and thrice the player dejong could ever hope to be. the color of his skin and culture had nothing to do with it.
regrefully i must now be blunt…fokof
27 Sep 2012, 12:55 pm
@David-353:
And what a soldier Back was.
115% everytime.
By the end of his career, it looked like someone had smashed his face with a brick.
27 Sep 2012, 12:55 pm
@rangerman-316: Pardon me, I didn’t know Afrikaner Calvinism is insulting. I thought its something to be proud about, hence I don’t follow your Muslim jibe…
27 Sep 2012, 12:56 pm
@Jeraldjay-342: “When Boesak speaks he makes your whole body tingle”… Chrissakes man.
27 Sep 2012, 12:56 pm
@PissAnt-356: there are some fossils on this site – giving away your age – I know about Naas and Mallet and the du Plessis and not much more.
27 Sep 2012, 12:57 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-246: Ahem, not all big players are lumbering oxes and not all small players should be discarded on the basis of height. Both extremes are plain stupid.
27 Sep 2012, 12:57 pm
@XhosaKid-339:
Have JdJ scored as good a try as the following. There was not only a step, but a couple of other special moments in this try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpHaQZV-n6s
I can also show you numerous Ettienne Botha clips, btw another player Meyer picked.
27 Sep 2012, 12:57 pm
@Heavens Game-264: I said 2 weeks ago
that my love affair with SA rugby was over.Although I approve of the
changes,I will be true to my word On Saturday will buy a bottle of
good whisky(An improvement on my usual boxed plonk) and enjoy
watching the game with a dispassionate eye.No anger,no excitement.
27 Sep 2012, 12:59 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-336: Besides Habana, who would make a starting 15 in that Bok backline.
27 Sep 2012, 12:59 pm
@RL-363:
I wasn’t even in high school at that stage…
But it is something WP supporters will never forget.
27 Sep 2012, 13:00 pm
@PissAnt-368:
It would have given Province 6 Currie Cups in one decade…something that’s never been achieved.
27 Sep 2012, 13:00 pm
@Heavens Game-362:
You wouldn’t understand HG.
Only experienced it once during the early 80′s before he embezzled that money.
27 Sep 2012, 13:01 pm
ndikhona ndigcwele ndingumgqutsho, ndiyazibulisela othandayo avume andinicengi kaloku
27 Sep 2012, 13:02 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-267: Yes Black does have Lion caps.
Xhosakid is right in what he said. Jonny was the number 1 flyhalf in the world. Jason was awesome.
Paulse did well. Chester Williams wasn’t exactly the Tower of Pisa. And so the list goes on.
Size is not everything. It depends on the player.
27 Sep 2012, 13:02 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-349: Plenty of which learnt their rugby outside of Pretoria anyway.
Uli’s the only “local” I can think of right now; maybe one or two more.
27 Sep 2012, 13:02 pm
@WP-Forever-284: “I think the argument he is trying to make is if you have two players of more or less equal ability, you’ll always end up selecting the larger one”
only in heyneke meyer’s tortuous mind is dropping daniel, shifting alberts to 8 and playing potgieter at 7 with marcell at 6 a brilliant plan -“The Pumas also mauled quite well in Cape Town and we were not happy with the defence of their mauls, so with the extra weight Jacques brings, we will have to ensure we stop their drives.”
who is the better 8th man, keegan or alberts?
what was the rationale for choosing alberts over his sharks captain who is a starter @ 8 in the regular season?
27 Sep 2012, 13:05 pm
@Transformation-374:
Indeed.
Clearly Meyer does not rate Daniels…
27 Sep 2012, 13:05 pm
@Taahirah-332: very LOL
27 Sep 2012, 13:06 pm
@Tacitus-247:
“This Bok coach got our pack of forwards to dominate the All Blacks at home”
Actually, one can probably put that down to the fetcher in the team by the name of Francois Louw.
His selection made all the difference in how the Bok forwards performed.
To think that HM never believed in fetchers.
27 Sep 2012, 13:06 pm
@ryecatcher-366:
“No anger,no excitement.”
With half a bottle of Chivas Regal down your gullet?
I think not somehow Catcher.
27 Sep 2012, 13:07 pm
@nama1-377:
Hoe’s die weer op Steinkopf vandag?
27 Sep 2012, 13:07 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl-359: He !! he!!!, Ettienne Botha, I remember him playing outside another midget Adrian Jacobs for the Falcons under PDV, what a player, so reckon it was ok not to pick him for the Boks as well?, you are battling to line up your facts correctly,…. I can see that smoke coming out of your over-working brains.
!!!, relax the pain of humiliation will be over soon….. don’t come under prepared here, know your rugby before spewing forth your ill-informed, blatant ignorance…. class is in session.
27 Sep 2012, 13:08 pm
@ryecatcher-366: Bok rugby is, has been and will be great… It always has elements of greatness… But much of its greatness comes from players that break the mould, not conform to folklore fantasies of “traditional ways” that are now getting shoved down everyone’s throats by the netjies, structure and hankering after the “traditional powers” of the past that both Heyneke and Rassie seem to be obsessed about…
Greats like Morne Du Plessis, Mannetjies Roux, Francois Pienaar, Tobias, Claasen, Bedford, Coetsee and many many more… They all broke the mould whether physically or by their different thought patterns/outlooks or both…
27 Sep 2012, 13:11 pm
@ryecatcher-366: A nd no great expectation.
27 Sep 2012, 13:12 pm
@WP-Forever-281:
“I’ve actually started salivating at the prospect of that backline you proposed.”..
sjoe!
you wp okes really have a way with words..
27 Sep 2012, 13:13 pm
@Heavens Game-381: The mavericks.I have said this here before.Love mavericks.
27 Sep 2012, 13:14 pm
@Jeraldjay-370: I wouldn’t understand? Exclusionary… No?
Is it because I am too Eenglish… Not brown enough… Not Cape Mala enough… Not cullert enough, that I wouldn’t understand?
Or is just because I wasn’t there?
27 Sep 2012, 13:14 pm
@ryecatcher-384:
me too.
27 Sep 2012, 13:17 pm
@ryecatcher-384:
Especially the platinum lounge.
27 Sep 2012, 13:18 pm
@ryecatcher-344:
hehe
well look around you…. only devils and a cold blue sea…
27 Sep 2012, 13:19 pm
@Heavens Game-385:
All of the above.
It was a comment posted in jest HG.
Chillax.
27 Sep 2012, 13:20 pm
@Jeraldjay-370:
he sounds like someone removed his adenoids with a serving spoon.
27 Sep 2012, 13:22 pm
@cane-378: Correct on all counts except the voluue of liquor.Since my wife will be joining me it will be more
than half a bottrle.Good luck to your team in the Pampas.Regards.
27 Sep 2012, 13:23 pm
@ryecatcher-391: voluue = volume.
27 Sep 2012, 13:25 pm
@WP-Forever-387: Dont know it but enjoy your work here.
27 Sep 2012, 13:27 pm
Katman, So give me someone who is a good Big oke vs a good Small oke? you will find you will do exactly what I did.. pick someone your reckon to be better than the other,no matter the size..
\What is the threshold? When is one “big” and when is a player small in stature? 1,75? 85kg?
Where would you fit Percy Montgomery for instance?
27 Sep 2012, 13:28 pm
@WP-Forever-387:
you mean the boom boom room?
27 Sep 2012, 13:29 pm
@ryecatcher-384: I ask myself more and more, everytime I see a new rapidly changing Bok squad this one question… WWHP…
Who will Heynek pick? And the answers are getting predictable… not due to a players experience but more due to his “character”…
What is not predictable is whether Heyneke had the choice and these players were, say the undoubtable best in their positions now… Would he pick the following:
- James Small
- Hennie Le Roux
- Henry Honiball
- Mark Andrews
- James Dalton
- Rob Louw
etc.
I say not a fark… There would be a “he is too…” [insert reason] or it would be a “horses for courses selection”….
None of the above fit a mould… They are either too small, can’t kick far enough or too farken mal… i.e. They have “questionable” characters… Character flaws.
27 Sep 2012, 13:35 pm
@gunther-390:
Looking forward to tomorrow’s game. I see it starts at 12h00.
Think Gary will have to drop Faf. Don’t know who the backup is though. Maybe push Albie up the order.
27 Sep 2012, 13:36 pm
@WP-Forever-379:
Reenerig en koud.
27 Sep 2012, 13:36 pm
@Jeraldjay-389: I reckon even Juju is a better orator…
Heard this on the radio the other day him commenting about something or other that didnt turn out as expected…
“Sanitation [sanity] has been restored”…
Priceless…
Now that is oratory…
27 Sep 2012, 13:39 pm
“n Goeie, slimmer kleintjie sal altyd beter wees as ‘n goeie, dom grote.
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