Pleasing the politicians
26 Oct 2009
Colour remains an issue when it comes to national rugby team selections, writes Keo in his weekly Business Day column.
In the latest issue of SA Rugby magazine Springbok coach Peter de Villiers defends his stance towards transformation. De Villiers says he will not play a numbers game because it will do players more harm than good.
De Villiers, in defending why he only picked two non-white wingers and a Zimbabwean-born prop in his Springbok team that won the Tri-Nations, argues his team has been transformed because the colour of a player’s skin does not matter any more.
If you believe merit selection is the only way, it gets even better because De Villiers tells his critics, among them the Transformation Committee, to get lost, asking what contribution have they made.
But it is one thing to talk a good game and quite another to play it, and the playing of this transformation game will come with the Springbok squad selection for the five-match tour of Europe.
De Villiers will take 37 players for the three-Tests and two midweek matches, but already indications are that despite his bullish stance on only seeing players and not colour, the colour of a player’s skin will indeed dictate certain selections.
De Villiers will take three hookers and three scrumhalves, yet two players who have been bits and pieces selections in this year’s Currie Cup are certainties to tour. Chiliboy Ralepelle, at hooker, and Ricky Januarie, at scrumhalf, will be selected, despite not being the premier provincial selections in their respective positions.
De Villiers could argue that if he was selecting those provincial sides he would be picking them and that is why he is doing it now, but in the case of hookers the whispers are that not only will he select Ralepelle, but the Bulls’ third choice hooker Bandise Maku is also going to make the trip.
Where does this leave the Bulls’ first choice hooker Derick Kuun or the very impressive Western Province hooker Tiaan Liebenberg? Would the selection of Maku ahead of either send out the wrong message that Springbok touring squads are still a black numbers game, designed to bluff the public and appease the politicians.
When picking a squad of 37 there is always room for calling a black player bluff, as we’ve seen so many times in the past. You only have to ask what happened to Solly Tyibilika, Hilton Lobberts, Kabamba Floors and Hanyani Shimange’s Test careers. And let’s not even go further back to other players who are victims of black player politicking.
This tour should be about winning Tests and developing the next tier of player that can go beyond the 2011 World Cup. It should also be a tour that defines there has been a shift towards merit selection at a Bok level.
I doubt it will be, though, and another selection that will ask more questions than it gives answers is if De Villiers picks Earl Rose ahead of Western Province’s Joe Pietersen or the Sharks’ Stefan Terblanche, with the latter two being the best fullbacks in the Currie Cup.
Rose has been poor all season and while De Villiers has invested in him at a national level for the last year, he still has not picked Rose to play in a Test match. Currently there are players more deserving of wearing green and gold.
Juan de Jongh, the outstanding Western Province midfielder, is a tour prospect, but he is a player very much in the mould of Adi Jacobs and selecting both is a luxury. In an ideal sporting world, it should be one or the other, but as we know South African rugby is never ideal and it certainly is not a sporting world.
Politics will sadly play a part with the Bok squad selection and despite what De Villiers may publicly say colour is an issue when it comes to national rugby team selections. It is sad because there are so many good players deserving of selection, simply because they are good players.
There are fine black and coloured players in this country, with many of them the best in their positions. Pick those players because they deserve to be there.
The midweek Bok side would on merit include several black and coloured players. The Test side, on merit, totals less than a handful. That is the reality and when De Villiers picked two non-white wingers and a Zimbabwean prop he was picking the best available black talent.
He needs to remain true to this view, however unpopular it is in the Portfolio Committee, because it only needs one obvious non-merit selection to undermine every black merit selection.
Saturday’s squad selection could be monumental for who isn’t picked, but something tells me it will be all too familiar and all too political.
554 Comments
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27 Oct 2009, 07:28 am
#549 Predawn:
ya, and beating my 60kg bullmastiff to the wire carring all the goodies, making him biting the crisp, thin air of JHB.
27 Oct 2009, 07:37 am
I’d also balega if I had that monster after me. Prefer a staffie pitbull cross…speed as well as death on four legs
27 Oct 2009, 14:14 pm
we live in south africa. there will always be disputes about race, politics and quota. I am a big supporter of transformation programs, but I am definetely not a supporter of the way it is implemented.
The whole purpose of transformation is development. Development in youth is misguided by people “up there” twisted way of including quotas in the system. That will not change for as long as the ones in charge have a mind shift as to how to truely develop our youth.
Bottom line is that politics should stay out of sport! Sport is the one thing where people should be able to express themselves,live it out as good as they desire to, and excell in excellence!
Ricky should not be in the squad purely based on performance he shouldn’t. We all know he can “maak die pap aan”, and he does have talent, no one will deny that. But he receives a paycheck and all the incentives that the Boks do,and therefore falls into this comfort zone where he need not to perform well, prove something or put his body on the line to be in the squad. Lets take an example Francois Hougaard, I am not saying he should be in the squad, I just want to prove my point. week in and week out he learns, you can see in his physical condition he trains hard, he goes in hard, lookoing for work. because he knows he is in the queue, but that makes him be better! Why must young talent be lost, because Ricky gets thrown in everytime.
Same goes for Chilliboy. He is an great ambassador for this country, good leader and an awesome spokesperson with great diccipline in still training and eating right, that I will always say But because he is always in the squad (”comfort zone”), he will not move to get game time with another union being the 2nd choice at the Bulls. This in unfair in comparison with any other player, making career, even life changes in order to get game time, and actually play rugby in order to wear the green and gold.
I can go on with names of players falling in this comfort zone with great talent going to waste:
Chilli – Tiaan Liebenberg, Adriaan Strauss
Ricky – Jano vermaak (injured right now), Francois Hougaard
Ryan Kankowski – Ashley Johnston (he actually takes the ball forward)
Adrian Jacobs – Juan de Jongh, Wynand Olivier
Danie Rossouw – Willem Alberts(covering for loose forward and Lock), Jean Deysel
Jannie Du Plessis – WP Nel, Wian Du Preez (if beast needed a rest period)
Jp Pieterse – Lionel Mapoe
Don’t put players in the bok team, just because they are white/black/experience. Focus on the best 15 on pure talent!
Give these boys a go. Maybe they will prove you wrong.
I just feel, that these guys, they must be shaken up a bit. Give someone the chance that will risk so much more to wear that jersey!
20 Dec 2009, 00:54 am
Whilst a fully agree on selecting the players on merit, one must not leave untouched the question as to why after 17 years of unified rugby and over R100million spend on development by SARU, we still can’t field enough players of colour in the Bok team? Is someone at SARU wasting money, by not understanding the job they are suppose to do or to we simply not have the players of colour to develop up to the international stage?
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