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A tale of two codes
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8:06PM, Sunday, 13 Jul, 2008
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I have been extremely quiet the last few weeks. There were happenings in my life that hijacked it to the point of me almost losing my sanity.
It does not mean that I had no time to follow my favorite sports though. And what follow here is my thoughts on exactly that…sport. In particular, cricket and rugby.
Much have been said and publicized about South African rugby and cricket the last few weeks. To start off with, our national rugby team had to endure the most hostile of off-the-field commentary the likes of which we have not seen since our embarrassing exit from the 2003 World Cup.
Pieter de Villiers has been given very little chance at succeeding at his job. As most people, I also thought that he is little more than a puppet and that he is no more than the new face of South African rugby administration. The transformation of SA rugby became priority number 1 and many, including myself, thought that reckless decision making inside the ranks of SA rugby will undoubtedly cause the rugby on the field of play to self-destruct.
The recent international matches against the six nations champs and Italy produced nothing to silence those critics. Wins all around lulled certain camps into a false sense of security. Pieter was the man, but to those who have actually played the game at the highest level the true test still awaited the team and Pieter.
What I find most interesting of any international match played, in both cricket and rugby, is the buildup. The wide spread articles you find splattered across newspapers and the internet are lapped up for the truth and if critics rate our sides to do well, the public believes we will. If critics, on the other hand, decide that our sides will be outplayed, the public becomes panicky. In a way, I guess, it makes us human. After all, we all live with presidents we elected and as such we trust in the good judgment of those we put in power to look after our interests. And we made the decision to elect that man into power based on what we hear and read. Not unlike the way in which we believe the opinion of critics to be the gospel when it comes to our sport.
In both cricket and rugby we received nothing but good reports and upbeat journalistic titbits for weeks prior to the English tour and the opening Tri-nations game against NZ. We were billed to bowl the English top order to smithereens with the likes of Morkel and Steyn, only to have guys like Kallis, Amla, Smith, McKenzie et al come in and post scores of 600+ in any given innings. And we had good reason to believe those claims as NZ have just showed us that a little fighting spirit can make the already brittle English side crumble under pressure. And since we have been outplaying NZ for some time now we would have been forgiven to think that closing out a test match inside three days and winning them all by an innings and a few runs against England is a distinct possibility.
On the other side of the spectrum we had a South African rugby side that did not have the best of preparations prior to the Tri-nations kicking off. Yet we were able to believe all and sundry reporting on their preparations down in NZ that we have a huge chance of kicking their proverbial behinds in their own back yard. But we humans have a funny way of staying / not staying connected to reality when the people around us seem to believe in us too much.
The first game against NZ was a real eye-opener. Whatever their preparations included prior to the start it was very clear to me that the game plan might have been browsed over briefly between the mid-day lunch and the tea break on Friday afternoon before kick-off. NZ outplayed us badly and losing that game actually hurt me more than what the scoreline might have suggested. We made enough mistakes in that game to warrant a 30 point loss…which basically made the 17-9 scoreline extremely flattering.
Three days ago we step onto the hallowed field of Lords. The scene of many a South African triumph in the past it is steeped in tradition and it automatically demands the utmost respect from both sets of players and officials alike. Almost 600 runs later a declaration follows from England only to bowl SA out for 247, forcing them to follow on. And nothing came of the proposed dominance our bowlers will have over the English batsmen and the only notable scores in the SA first innings came from two players hardly ever mentioned in the press prior to the start of the test match…a gritty ton by Prince and a decent 40 odd by De Villiers.
I have little hope of us drawing this test match, let alone winning it.
So now I rush back over to rugby as my last thought can easily be summed up by the performance of the SA side this morning in Carisbrook.
The inclusion of Percy Montgommery at fullback in the starting 15 along with the inclusion of two others that had little playing time since the world cup, showed us that Pieter de Villiers knew very well that another loss against NZ would be a catastrophe in the face of the high hopes there were prior to our overseas leg of the Tri nations and he knew he needed to have experience in the side that would be virtually unfazed by the intimidating venue, the equally intimidating NZ side and the pressure that was created by the loss of the previous week. What followed were some sparkling performances from almost everyone in green and gold, with the obvious exception of the kicking of Butch. Ricky January had a blinder, Jean de Villiers was rock-solid in midfield, Habana was looking for work everywhere and our loosies was in a word awesome. And to top it off the guys defended the advantage line with the ferocity of a side playing a do-or-die final. As such they managed to end an impressive streak of NZ wins at home. The moral of the story for me is basically this: We know our sportsmen are good and in certain key positions, in both the mentioned codes, we have arguably some of the world’s best exponents at what they do. But all too often they fold under the pressure created by good publicity after they adopt the mentality of “we only have to arrive at the venue to be guaranteed of a win”. The SA rugby squad showed this morning what can be done after a week of soul searching and disappointment when you clearly have a very strong point to prove. I can only hope that what happened this morning will rub off on their countrymen in England come the second test.
And hopefully Smith’s men will use the first test as a valuable reminder that nothing in life is guaranteed and when a point needs to be proved it’s better to do it yourself on the park than leave it in the hands of journalists to make it happen for you.
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