Why winning isn’t everything
20 Feb 2013
MARK KEOHANE, in his Business Day Sport Monthly column, says we live in a miracle country and it’s time we started appreciating the miracle of sport.
Sport is entertainment and it is also about effort. A fixation with just the result is going to lead to a lot of heartache.
It wasn’t that long ago when South Africa wasn’t allowed to compete internationally. Familiarity breeds contempt and irrationally so.
Feel good about the joy of indulging in the performance of South Africans, who are among the best ever produced in their respective codes.
We put huge pressure on our performers to produce every time, but the fans and the media have as much of a responsibility in their performance post match.
We also need to grow up and show some perspective to the effort of the individual or team and give credit to the quality of the opposition. There are times when they just are better and they actually win and we actually lose.
For those who are inspired to live in this country only when South Africa wins, take some responsibility for your own emotions. Similarly, don’t blame a poor SA performance for your depression. No player is losing deliberately and no national player should be subjected to the hate and vitriol published on Twitter.
It sickens me that people can actually feel a justification in the abuse and believe they are owed something by the player and that the player has a responsibility to ensure their happiness. The abuse is disgusting and can never be justified. There is so much to applaud and there is a generation of South African performer that is the best ever produced in this country. What a privilege it is to watch them at their peak.
Look beyond the need for a winning result and imagine South Africa being in sporting isolation. It is pathetic how fans think players are there to instil nationalism. Go do that yourself and start enjoying the sport and keep perspective.
There is life the next day and sport always gives your team or the individual a chance to get it right or to flop.
It is an honour to play for one’s country, but it is not a crime to lose and supporters need to take their insecurity and deal with it.
In the days of isolation we never played anyone and never lost. So we allowed ourselves to believe we were the best in everything. The reality is we are not the best in all things sport and that does not deserve the crassness I read on Twitter.
I get irritated with a lot of our sports media coverage, especially in newsprint. It is always all or nothing, as if every win defines the miracle of this country and defeat brings the possibility of doom. Inspire me with a solution instead of repeating what I saw on television 24 hours earlier and what I have read on the Internet a day earlier.
The media is more guilty than the fans in the buzz and the blowout. I have been as guilty as anyone at times of my career so I certainly don’t preach from a pedestal of purity, but rather from a place of apology.
The daily sports media though need to get a grip and invest in some perspective.
An example was the Proteas ODI series defeat against New Zealand. The Proteas did not play well but the game was apparently in crisis after the series defeat and the euphoria of being the best Test team in the world a few days earlier was an afterthought.
The hysteria was excessive, just like the condemnation and ridicule of New Zealand’s tour only a few days earlier. Appreciate the players and the fact that it’s not you out there on days when all is failing save the potency of the opponent.
There’s an added spice when you know you are watching a performer unrivalled in their field and at the peak of their performance.
The South African bowling attack gives me that sense of awe. Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis evoke a similar emotion and Graeme Smith is just never going to get the reward for his effort. No other Test captain in the history of the game has achieved as much.
Smith, having gone past 100 Test matches as captain, still has his doubters. Give him a break. There is a serious projection of insecurity and delusion among many of the South African fans in the way they react to the players.
A guy like Smith must be judged on how he plays and not for how his gum chewing may irk you. It is massive what he has achieved yet there are so many who burden him with not wearing enough flags on his T-shirt and not being proudly South African.
This is sport. Nationalism looks after itself and it can’t be all taken from the player’s performance. We owe the player the simple courtesy of a dignified interaction that does not start with an attack on his mother’s hair colour and outright abuse.
Grow up you trolls or inspire with your cleverness.
Oh, and one last thing, why the obsession with having to feel the need to retire great players at the start of a season because they are supposedly blocking the path of a 21-year-old?
Give the more mature form players the necessary respect. They’ve earned the right through performance to a bit of loyalty. Our rugby players offer the promise of silverware in Super Rugby but the enjoyment must also be in the performance.
Bafana, in African soccer’s big bi-annual one, were brave and belligerent in a tournament I hoped they could win but never quite had the conviction to believe it was possible. They lost in the quarter-finals on penalties, which was a cruel yet also a dignified exit for the hosts. Dignified in it allowed us to dream of what could have been without confronting the reality of what would most likely have been had they advanced to the semi-final or final.
Bafana played with passion and the support of a nation was a boost, but there are limitations to the current side and the desire to associate with success should also not be confused with the expectation that if they don’t win a tournament they have failed.
Equally our Super Rugby teams.
– This article first appeared in the March issue of Business Day Sport Monthly, which is distributed FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of every month.
1,128 Comments
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20 Feb 2013, 22:03 pm
@Transformation-700:
He dominated in a wp under 20 cup winning under 20 team 2 years ago- huge boot, great passing game, very courageous tackler (one of the reasons he is so often injured) as well as a very reliable goalkicker.
Imo he is just as talented as Jantjes and that bloke from the sharks.
20 Feb 2013, 22:37 pm
@Robzim-701: “2 years ago” lionel cronje was sa rugby player of the year. as i said, i personally haven’t seen his game.
20 Feb 2013, 22:38 pm
@Transformation-702: ^u20 player of the year
20 Feb 2013, 22:46 pm
Lionel may yet make it by the look of his season so far with the Lions. Sometimes it’s a matter of getting the right fit, good luck to him.
Gary must be feeling the pressure but the fact that he is constantly included, last year ahead of players like Demitri says something about his talent and potential.
20 Feb 2013, 23:03 pm
you know me SB i listen when being told about a young buck that’s bubbling under
this is running commentary from me & robbo when we met @ firemans sometime back. we just like to spark now & then.
20 Feb 2013, 23:39 pm
@Transformation-705: Ah ok got it. Carry on then
21 Feb 2013, 00:00 am
Homoerectus the flesh eating killing apeman gone apeshit emptying his chamber of death on an innocent victim he supposedly loved. Trying to prove his brave manhood as the victim of crooked circumstances and criminal activities. You ever seen more feeble specimen of humankind the big Rambo heroes going to jellyfish when they ain’t blowing their loaded arrogance from behind a barrel of a gun ?
Ban the sordid diseases of humanity guns and alcohol. While you about it start learning that killing begets killing. When its so easygoing easy to taking life for granted willy nilly some killing apeshit blood sucking murderous killers don’t know where life begins or ends.
21 Feb 2013, 00:28 am
You wanna play hooky with a loaded gun of pent up emotional charged sympathies of psyched up inadequacy any princess thinking they gonna turn legless Rambo into a prince of principles simply with a kiss of compassion had to be either living in Alice in wonderland fairytale country or else her heart was bigger than the fantasy she led him to believe.
21 Feb 2013, 00:41 am
I reckon the Bulls are going to beat the Stormershits, quite easily, this weekend.
21 Feb 2013, 00:45 am
Back your reckoning with some hard core beliefs. How much you wager a bulls win is worth?
21 Feb 2013, 00:49 am
Stormershits are in for a big surprise.
21 Feb 2013, 00:50 am
Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily gad about.
They love to play and shout,
They never have any cares.
At six o’clock their mummies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they’re tired little teddy bears.
21 Feb 2013, 01:02 am
You praying hard Sharkishit you better pray even harder that your soft soap bunch of namby pamby mommies boys don’t get fckd doer over the banana plantation by the mielie boere on Saturday. That should be first concerns on your prayer list as you kneel down to pray for heavens mercies to safeguard you pisswilly mercenaries when the egte boere come to town.
21 Feb 2013, 01:05 am
This Saturday I will be a Bullshit! Always lekker to see the Stormershits go down.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of fans
21 Feb 2013, 01:07 am
Did someone mention “mercenaries”?
You mean like how the of the 22 man Stormershits squad for this weekend 10 are mercenaries?
Walked into that one, didn’t you?
21 Feb 2013, 01:14 am
Sharkishits got how many fuckwit arsecreep mercenaries in their team ?
From 23 they got Burden Coetsee and Lambypamby. 3 pisswilly little Sharkishits out of 23 selected for battle that’s all they could muster from the entire battalion of the feeble soccer playing last bastion of pompous snot noses.
21 Feb 2013, 01:21 am
Sharkshits don’t discriminate
We aren’t xenophobic
We don’t ive in the past, get in the modern world.
21 Feb 2013, 01:24 am
@skopdiekan-716: hehehe you are always liberal with the truth ne?
Bresler went to DHS (Durban High School).
The list is growing.
Seriously I have exposed you as a fibber countless times
21 Feb 2013, 01:27 am
Not a case of discrimination it’s simply a case of you don’t produce rugby players in softy soapy soutie bananarama country. If you were playing FS cheetahs in soccer on Saturday you could’ve fielded a proper Sharkishits team of fckwit soccer players because that what feeble little softy soapy souties play in bananarama country. Then you wouldn’t have to rip off and thieve other provinces rugby talents and call them your own. Thieving rip off artist mercenary merchants.
21 Feb 2013, 01:28 am
Kyle Cooper went to Glenwood
The fibber’s list continues to grow….
21 Feb 2013, 01:32 am
Bressler went to primary school in Namibia and Cooper was born and went to junior school in Jozi.
So what you wanna claim 5 little Sharkishits from 23 in your team that makes 18 mercenaries how proud of these gold digger blood money foreign legionaires you must be.
21 Feb 2013, 01:32 am
Hehehehe Chadwick and Monde Hadebe both in the S15 squad, both went to Westville.
hehehehehe
the fibber’s list is growing
21 Feb 2013, 01:33 am
How does the fibber explain 10 merc in the Stormershits?
Hypocrite much?
21 Feb 2013, 01:36 am
Butch James another…..
21 Feb 2013, 01:37 am
Neither Chadwick nor Hadebe are playing this weekend the maximum Sharkishits you can claim in your blood money legionaires team are 5/23 That’s all the rugged rugger players you can show in your squad of mercenaries. The rest are playing soccer for Amazulu or Banana Banana.
21 Feb 2013, 01:42 am
no answer from the fibber about the 10 mercs in his own team (when he initially tried to claim there were only 5 or 6…..)
Hypocrite much?
21 Feb 2013, 01:44 am
Anyway, in the real world, people don’t care where you were born or went to school. Only old fashioned senile old timers give a damn. Get in the real world you old goat
We don’t care, we just win.
21 Feb 2013, 01:44 am
7 out of 10
We win.
21 Feb 2013, 01:48 am
Just checked Stormers squad this weekend
8/15 WP bred and schooled players in run on team
And 4/8 on bench
That’s more than 50%
Sharkishits =
3/15 run on
1/ 8 off bench
If you wanna claim Bressler thought he born and raised in Namibia gives you a total 5/23
Stormers = 12/23
Big difference.
21 Feb 2013, 01:55 am
7 man bench thought they going with Irb 8 man bench system
So Stormers = 12/22 local bred players perhaps next to cheetahs the highest local component representation in the competition. Sharkishits probably the lowest local bred representation in the entire comp.
21 Feb 2013, 01:56 am
Since when does a team have 23?
Is it not 22 you big old fibber?…
So let’s see 5/22 is too little and 12/22 is enough?…..
You’re a man who can twist the facts to suit any story, aren’t you? Hehehehe
WHAT A SILLY ARGUMENT!
And what’s worse, you cry about it EVERY DAY!
21 Feb 2013, 01:57 am
Trust me if the Sharkshits had 0/22 nobody in Natal would give a flying toss
21 Feb 2013, 01:58 am
21 Feb 2013, 02:00 am
We embrace diversity.
Bring back Thierry Lacroix!
21 Feb 2013, 02:00 am
Bring back Frederico Mendez!
21 Feb 2013, 02:00 am
Bring back Olivier Roumat!
21 Feb 2013, 02:01 am
Bring back Tony Brown!
21 Feb 2013, 02:02 am
Bring back David Knox!
21 Feb 2013, 02:02 am
Bring back Freddie Michalak!
21 Feb 2013, 02:02 am
Bring back Andy Goode!
21 Feb 2013, 02:04 am
OK maybe don’t bring back Andy “Shrek” Goode.
21 Feb 2013, 02:05 am
Shove your racist xenophobic local only players policy.
21 Feb 2013, 02:06 am
Bring back Gregor Townsend!
21 Feb 2013, 02:08 am
Bring back Juan Martin Hernandez!
21 Feb 2013, 02:11 am
Keep your Elroy de Bruins and Frikkie van der Merwes from the Boland.
21 Feb 2013, 02:22 am
Supporting Sharkishits is same as supporting Manchester Uninspired or Barcelona. A bunch of f’ng soccer playing money grubbing mercenaries. Not a real dinkum rugby playing contributor among them unless you call Lambikins or Chadwick or Craig Burden a proper rugby player.
Least WP produce around 40% of the rugby talent in the
country. FS and EP another 40% and MP GP KZN NP NC the rest.
21 Feb 2013, 06:42 am
@ShaunB-745:
U off today? Or don’t u have a job?
21 Feb 2013, 07:32 am
Never a dull moment in SA…
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/oscar-cop-facing-attempted-murder-charges-1.1474181#.USWwSh2LCJc
21 Feb 2013, 08:48 am
@BrumbiesBoy-748: However doff and incompetent this keystone cop appears…..do you not find it funny, that this charge against him was provisionally withdrawn in 2009 (after is was apparent they shot at a taxi who pushed them out of the way, whilst chasing a suspect in the Watford murder at the time – and that his blood was not tested for alcohol at all way back then?)
Suddenly, on the day he is to be called at the Pistorius bail hearing, it is reinstated (after being withdrawn in 2009?), and he is informed his own trial will start in May…..?
Friends in high places this defence team of OP’s?
I don’t doubt his Botha cop has a history somewhere and has proven himself to be less then efficient as a lead detective. But honestly? Something isn’t ‘off’ here?
21 Feb 2013, 08:50 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-749:
Fikile for one.
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