After sitting among the fanatical crowd at Newlands last weekend, Luke Alfred believes it was a futile exercise
WE can surely all agree that the game between the South African President’s XV and Western Province at Newlands last Saturday was a fairly futile exercise.
At times the bad tempered, money-spinning event looked almost worse than futile, it looked ill-judged: if the President’s XV won handsomely it was confirmation of their superiority; if they won narrowly — or lost — it proved that they were not the best side in the country and that an upcountry manager had favoured his own.
The Saturday afternoon kragmeting was overshadowed by the selection of the Springbok squad 24 hours later. If this squad manage to take South Africa to the semifinals of the World Cup, the Newlands match will be relegated to a footnote in a post-isolation history of the sport. If not, journalists and fans might reflect that it was yet another wrong turning in a season bedevilled by bickering, regionalism, short-lived comebacks, too much rugby and too much talk of life after the World Cup.
As I walked past the Newlands swimming pool (skottelbraais in the parking lot, beers in hand) down the appropriate sounding Sport Pienaar road, I was — surprise, surprise — looking forward to the game. Sitting on the railway stands watching the curtain-raiser betwen two primary school sides, Die Dune and De Waveren, this feeling persisted.
While chatting to an extremely knowledgeable steward (a man in the Robbie Brink, Tiaan Strauss, Naka Drotske camp) I felt that I had come across a kindred spirit. But the minute the match started I realised that I had stumbled into a stadium full of bellowing fanatics. A crowd that gave vent to as cogent an argument for federalism as any I’ve seen.
When the front-rows popped up and started slugging it out the crowd bayed for blood. When Vlok Cilliers outsprinted Joel Stransky one could be forgiven for thinking that it was Will Carling that he’d passed.
For all the passion that it aroused it might have been a Test match. A pity then that the standard of rugby played was roughly equivalent to a B international between Scotland and Ireland.
Despite the crowd there were some fine moments: Thinus Linee’s tackle on a stunned James Dalton. (Linee is the most under-rated of all our backline players.) James Small’s dynamic wing-switching run only to hold his head at a dismal final pass. Kobus Wiese’s fine display of jumping in the second half, Tiaan Strauss’ huge effort and Stransky’s almost arrogant last-minute drop kick.
There was something else too. During the first half of the curtain raiser a young Die Dune player sprinted 30m towards the opposition line. This was accompanied by commentary from my friend the steward: “Hardloop, hardloop — druk hom onder die pale, pale toe, pale toe,” he shouted, whereupon the player (who had already crossed the line) dropped the ball without dotting down.
It was cruel, but we had to laugh. Luckily we got our laughter in early.