Thanks a ton, Smitty
21 Aug 2010
MARK KEOHANE, in Business Day Sport Monthly, says that while the sprint of 2007 has been closer to a limp in 2010, the long serving Springbok captain is a deserving Test centurion.
At a time when all John Smit hears is condemnation of having stayed a season too long, comes the view of a 10-year-old who believes he can’t stick around long enough.
‘John Smit is the best, but at hooker. I don’t think of him as a prop,’ my son Oliver told me. The reason my son’s thoughts are more pertinent than mine is because of my initial struggle to write this piece. There was the celebration of the brilliant career, but there was also the reality of a season that has been a struggle for a player who put on 20kg to make the transition to playing prop and then has been asked to play hooker again.
It was unfair to ask that of Smit, as it would have been for any player, but nothing in Smit’s 10-year Bok career has been fair. Oliver wasn’t interested in that kind of detail.
‘He won us the World Cup,’ he said. ‘And he makes me want to be a Springbok because, Paps, after Kamp Staaldraad I don’t think anybody wanted to be a Springbok.’
Can Smit leave a greater legacy than inspiring the next generation of player to want to be Springboks? The World Cup, the Tri-Nations, winning against the All Blacks in New Zealand, beating the British & Irish Lions and being the second South African to play 100 Tests are monumental achievements. But inspiring younger generations to be like you, to play like you and to be winners (like you). That’s huge!
When I called Business Day Sport Monthly publisher Gary Lemke and told him this one’s going to read a bit different, as it’s not so much what I think of Smit’s career, it’s what my laaitie thinks of Smit, he said it was weird that I would have this conversation with my boy, as his seven-year-old boy (Mark) had traded being Bryan Habana for Smit in their backyard rugby games because ‘he’s our captain and he’s going to play 100 Tests for South Africa’.
In chatting about Smit to my boy he said the reader wouldn’t really be interested in my opinion about the Bok captain. ‘Why don’t you just write about what he has done and the way he has made us all smile?’ You can’t argue with the wisdom of the innocent and the young. They have no agenda, no complication and they somehow make it seem so simple.
Smit is a great of South African rugby – and among the greats of the game. To those who counter that by saying the greats know when to go, that’s a myth. Four of sport’s greatest – Muhammad Ali, Michael Schumacher, Lance Armstrong and Mark Spitz – all believed they had one victorious fight left in them. Smit is no different and while the popular view may be that he should have taken a first-class flight out of Test rugby after beating the All Blacks in New Zealand and winning the Tri-Nations last year, you can’t tell a champion when to go. It is the nature of a champion that someone has to retire him; and there is always a younger, bigger and more passionate challenger not interested in emotion and only interested in being the next champion.
Smit, regardless of whether he makes it to next year’s World Cup in New Zealand, is a champion who was the inspiration in turning the Springboks into the world-class side of the past six years.
With his prop’s waistline too tight a fit for a jersey made for the more athletic hookers, Smit has suffered this season, but the disappointment of 2010 can never detract from what he did for South African rugby, post-2003, the failed World Cup in Australia and the infamous Kamp Staaldraad.
Smit, asked to build a squad of youngsters and a sprinkling of survivors from the 2003 season, has never shirked the responsibility and never asked for a free ride in doing so.
He has survived five Bok coaches and resisted the challenge of so many good players with aspirations of wearing the Bok No 2 jersey. His leadership, more than his play, has influenced his longevity, is a popular retort from those who have and always will be anti-Smit.
There is an element of accuracy here, but Smit, between 2004 and 2009, justified his position on playing ability. He won the respect of the opposition and I recall Richie McCaw saying he was the toughest opponent he had faced as an All Black. There can’t be a greater compliment.
Over 10 years Smit has made the sacrifices and as an international player he has won every prize. The hunger, however misplaced the use of the word may appear given criticism of Smit’s conditioning this season, is not what it was 10 years ago, and if it were it would be freakish.
Only a handful of players can sustain the form needed to play for a country like South Africa for 10 successive years, and then there’s the complexity of captaining South Africa.
Two years ago Smit and McCaw shared a room while playing for the Barbarians. Smit tells the story of doing a telephonic media interview from the room while McCaw chilled. When it was over McCaw asked him whom he was talking to. When Smit said it was a standard media interview, McCaw laughed and said all he had to think about when captaining the All Blacks was rugby.
The politics of captaining South Africa continues to amaze Smit’s international counterparts. ‘Rather you than me, mate,’ is the standard response.
But Smit has gone on record saying he wouldn’t want it any other way because he appreciates the uniqueness of South Africa as a young democracy and the influence sport has on South Africans.
And having worked with Smit during a spell with the Springboks it isn’t a public relations line he uses. He believes in this country and he believes in the power of the Boks to expedite the search for normality.
His dignity in leading the Springboks in 2004 defined his leadership. Captaining the Boks requires special qualities. No Bok captain of the future will have it as tough as Smit had it in 2004 because he had to condemn Staaldraad (a camp he attended) and build a new image for South African rugby. He did so with honest reflection, spoke of his individual gains from the bush camp, but said a camp of that nature had no place in South African sport.
‘It taught every one of us about ourselves and what our bodies were capable of physically, but it was never going to be the reason we would win the World Cup. The intent was good, the execution was not,’ was how he summed it up to me a year later.
In his book Captain in the Cauldron he gave the most complete and unemotional account of the three days the 2003 World Cup squad endured in the bush. It left the reader with a feeling of sadness and sympathy, but also clarity about the leadership at the time. Smit was adamant there was never malice but a misguided belief among the squad’s leadership.
His book, a bestseller in South Africa, lacked the usual kiss and tell of what happens on tour. He gave an insight to the qualities of all five Bok coaches, what they added to the fabric of the Boks and coherently attempted to explain why some failed and others had triumphed.
He worked closely with Jake White between 2004 and 2007, and subsequently with Peter de Villiers. Not once has he ever compared the two. His loyalty, as a captain, is to the guy wearing the coach’s jacket.
His biggest loyalty is to his players and he is a disciple of shared leadership within the squad. He never makes a decision alone, but once a decision is made he always takes the responsibility.
White, technically brilliant, had player management shortcomings. Step in Smit. De Villiers, his player management his strength, is technically not as strong as White. Step in Smit.
Show him any pity and he is quick to cut you short.
‘I have been privileged to play for and captain the Boks, but I know it isn’t the real world. We live in a bubble as international sportsmen and I live very much in the real world. If I didn’t, my wife, family and close friends would quickly set that right.’
At a very early age he understood the politics of rugby, the role of the media and the bias of South Africa’s provincial support base. He never wasted energy trying to win popularity and allowed the critics their platform and their view.
What mattered to him was that he was grounded, honest with himself and honest with his team-mates.
He delivered his most inspirational speech during the World Cup quarter-final against Fiji when he told his players he could see in their eyes they were on their way home and that he sure as hell wasn’t ready to leave France for another two weeks. They responded immediately.
That was just one example of his ability to inspire through honesty. Smit has always relied on telling it like it is. When asked what the difference was between the 2003 and 2007 World Cup campaigns he said in 2003 they went hoping they could win but never believed it to be possible. In 2007 he said they knew they could win. There was no need for hope or good luck – just hard work.
– This article first appeared in Business Day Sport Monthly magazine, which is distributed FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of the month.
173 Comments
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21 Aug 2010, 15:13 pm
@Black Panther(Black Panther)-108:
Fiji on the day played a far superior game than New Zealand put together all year (remember the near loss to Canada?). If Fiji rolled over, then you could have a fair point, but they didn’t, so you are wrong. In fact, they were the most difficult side to prepare for given that they had nothing to lose and all the ability to tear you to shreds. Lucky to face them? Not a chance. Then there’s the fact that SA had the most physixally demanding fixtures in RWC history, all NZ had was a single hurdle and flopped. new Zealand had the easier draw, in teams that couldn’t hurt them, Romania, Italy and Scotland are some of the most blunt teams out there. And France hardly set the world alight now did they? You try to tell me the Boks had it easy, but NZ fell at the FIRST hurdle!! What a chop you are. And Argentina finished third, which is far ahead of New Zealand old chap. In fact they were one of the form teams in the tournament. get your facts straight next time. Added to these things the injuries the Boks suffered and diabolical banning of Schalk (Hayman got off for two punches a few feet away from the ref on the same day against Romania).
21 Aug 2010, 15:15 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-149: so your prediction on Piets mate?
and that helter skelter rugby, does it show 44-33? thought so… seems your boys just cant figure out how to stop it huh? got lucky once, had to call in your mates from France to do the job properly, along with their english mate.. (an oxymoron I know)
anyways, again, hope your team lives up to your expectations, mine will perform to a level that has been consistent since inception..
as a passionate supporter, one cant ask any more..
21 Aug 2010, 15:18 pm
@RugbyRulz(RugbyRulz)-150: Fark that. Kaplan is a weak kneed idjit…
Mark Lawrence has too many years to go as the top ref: A big gulf between him and the other Saffer refs.
Bryce Lawrence is not too bad, to be fair…
Neither can ref the big game though…
To take over – anyone but a blatant biased prat like POB
21 Aug 2010, 15:18 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-140:
Lets see now:
” tail between legs after an encounter with a bit of Bok beef…
………..”
Team P W D L BP Pts
All Blacks 4 4 0 0 3 19
Wallabies 3 1 0 2 0 4
Springboks 3 0 0 3 0 0
Not a lot of substance in the your Steak at present.
Played….. 3.
Won……… Nil.
(for our International Readers……….this is Nada, Zilch, Zero, Nothing, Naught, Nought, less than any number than can register on any graph ………a big fat donut.)
Heaven…………………………………………if there is one………(and I’m sure there is)………………….you ain’t there yet sunshine.
21 Aug 2010, 15:19 pm
@RugbyRulz(RugbyRulz)-150: Barnesy would take the hit but world rugby needs him on the pitch
21 Aug 2010, 15:22 pm
@Panzer Chief(cane)-154: are u staying up then cane? all that sleep deprivation can’t be easy on a man of your umm…advanced years
21 Aug 2010, 15:23 pm
What time is KO ????
21 Aug 2010, 15:26 pm
@Panzer Chief(cane)-154: Nothing like little bit of 2bit TV tourny perversions to beef up your “stats”.
On a level playing field sans POB and paddiesinapocket – a little bit different…
Would love to see Bok-AB stats sans Oirish refs
21 Aug 2010, 15:28 pm
@Black Panther(Black Panther)-157: 3:30 pm coverage starts GMT
4:00pm kick off GMT
21 Aug 2010, 15:30 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-156:
Too late for me Bigglies.
Took in a Wellington vs Waikato game earlier in the day. Some good form shown by fringe AB’s.
21 Aug 2010, 15:32 pm
Alucard
Perhaps you’re right. After all, the Boks made Tonga look World class and Fiji sometimes beat them.
JWs Bokke has losing records vs NZ and France and Australia.
Phew, aye.
Phew !
21 Aug 2010, 15:39 pm
@Big Hit(Big Hit)-155:
Actualy, Barnsey, was on a Charm School Tour of NZ Clubs a month or two back.
Did a marvelous job too.
We now only consider him, “inept ät the time”.
Rather than a corrupt biased pommy arrse-holle…………….much like yourself Bigglies.
21 Aug 2010, 15:45 pm
@Panzer Chief(cane)-162: ‘We now only consider him, “inept ät the time”.’
sooner or later some of the more begrudging NZers will have to accept him as a world class ref and indeed one who put in a world class performance that night in Cardiff.
Perhaps another early AB exit next year will convince that perhaps it wasn’t all Barnesy’s doing?
21 Aug 2010, 15:46 pm
Cane
I say we let it go re Barnesy.
He was totally inept at the time. This much is true. But blame the idiots who asked a pimply 20-something hanky-wearing failed barrister with 7 months International Test experience to control the match between the Favourites and the Hosts, not Our Wayne.
Let’s move on.
Gotta say tho. This lot complain if they don’t get enough pens and YCs awarded against the opposition. Can you imagine I’d they went a whole HALF of a knockout match with 1 solitary blow of the whistle in their favour ?!
21 Aug 2010, 15:47 pm
Too any English, or British, readers offended by my Post above (162).
My heartfelt, honest and most genuine apologies.
Tis a personal thing between Big Hit and myself.
I loved England…………..as long as I was not in London.
Bath and York…………..my personal favourites.
21 Aug 2010, 15:49 pm
BLACKPANTHER
20 OCTOBER 2007
21 Aug 2010, 15:50 pm
@Panzer Chief(cane)-165: nothing personal at all caner, I consider you keo royalty, we go back a whole three years now!
21 Aug 2010, 15:54 pm
@Black Panther(Black Panther)-164: mate, I have to correct you..
he blew the whistle two times against France… in a WC 1/4 final, imagine how deep the conspiracy would be if it was SA on the receiving end..
21 Aug 2010, 15:57 pm
@Black Panther(Black Panther)-164:
Give me a chance meeting with Barnsey…
and………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I would not be polite.
.
.
.
..
still.
.
.
.
.
There are few Human Beings I would gladely see rot in Hell. But Wayne is one.
Bakkies another.
21 Aug 2010, 16:13 pm
Poor barnesey, he’s been stitched up and will never be the same again
good luck to the kiwi faithful tho I think it’s the boks who going to need it with that pack – bliksem let’s hope the crowd works wonders
21 Aug 2010, 16:21 pm
@Panzer Chief(cane)-169: Cowan got all he deserved…
Should have been a yellow for the little twerp and his obstruction…
Instead Bakkies gets many weeks on the side of the pitch – justice, kiwi+oirish style…
21 Aug 2010, 16:21 pm
@Black Panther(Black Panther)-161:
And de Villiers Boks have had only a 2 and a half months blip of success in three years. Still ready to draw a comparison?
21 Aug 2010, 16:23 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-171: Who has Paddy got earmarked for todays yellows and reds…?
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