THIS has been a momentous year for rugby in this country. World Cup champions and unbeaten in 14 tests, the Amabokoboko have swept all before them.
The national euphoria which greeted the 15-12 win in the Ellis Park final over New Zealand was a shot in the arm for a nation suffering from the inferiority complex of seeing just how wide and wicked the world really is after decades of blinkered isolation.
It was Joel Stransky’s extra time drop goal which etched the words “South Africa” on the William Webb-Ellis Trophy, the squad which had got him there and the hearts of a nation which had willed them on.
The slogan “One team, One country”, which had been the adopted rallying cry at the start of a campaign, perhaps more in hope than expectation by all but coach Kitch Christie, who had said we would win from the start, took on the added significance of momentary
It was Bokke Bo! in the most effusive and concrete way possible.
Even President Mandela wore the leaping Springbok and the green and gold. And Archbishop Tutu — as unlikely a candidate as a lock forward you probably couldn’t hope to find — walked the streets of Cape town in a national rugby jersey which reached down almost as far as his more accustomed ecumenical robes.
Francois Pienaar, Chester Williams, Andre Joubert, Joost van der Westhiuzen, Ruben Kruger and Stransky have rightly been identified as figures of global status in the
So too has Christie. An intensely private man who shuns personal publicity, he has often proved to be one of the more thoughtful and incisive world coaches by applying logic to an often illogical game and insisting that his side play to their strengths rather than weakening their hand by playing to those of the opposition.
This, Christie and his side reinforced against England at Twickenham in the most emphatic of manners, beating Jack Rowell’s rearranged side 24-14 after a less than convincing warm-up Test against the Italians in Rome.
The openly global nature of the game was also shown in Natal’s French connection of Thierry Lacroix and Olivier Roumat, key components in bringing the Currie Cup back to Durban on a day ironically almost as drenched as that which saw the pair out of the World Cup in the scintillating semi-final against the South
The French selectors, as Gallically illogical as always, reacted by ruling both Lacroix and Roumat out of contention for the side to play two tests against the All Blacks.
But to say that all is healthy in South African rugby would be to further paper over the cracks which began to appear almost as soon as Pienaar had handed back the gold champion’s cup for safekeeping.
This, in reality, was a year ruled more often by the chequebook than the referee’s whistle.
Even before the game officially went professional in August, Louis Luyt had signed a R2-billion 10-year deal with media magnate Rupert Murdoch which effectively tied up the South African, New Zealand and Australian sides and all the top provincial line-ups in those countries.
The northern hemisphere brokered a similar deal for R1-billion over five years. Currently they are negotiating to have this increased to R1,5-billion over the same period and, when it comes time for renegotiating for the following five, will likely have got a far better deal than Luyt, bringing the haste with which the southern hemisphere deal was signed into
But Sanzar — the acronym made up of the three major nations party to the Murdoch millions — did not take the players either into account or their confidence.
As Luyt pointed out at the time, other money — most notably that of Murdoch’s arch rival Kerry Packer — was being dangled as tempting bait for players in the championship squad. Pienaar had even been acting as a Packer agent for the players.
The first signs of discontent with rugby’s Winter Palace came with an uprising among the senior members of the Transvaal squad. Having tasted the fruits of triumph — and doubtless some rule-of-thumb auditing on World Cup crowds — they effectively struck for better terms and conditions.
The South African Rugby Football Union, under Luyt’s steely stewardship, acted and signed the World Cup players in a deal which effectively made them millionaires overnight.
The crisis had been averted for the time being, but it left the question of whether those enjoying the new largesse would share it with the new blood coming into the side … or indeed continue to reap the rewards if they fell out of favour with the selectors.
Certainly, Gary Teichmann, who came in for one Test against the Welsh at Ellis Park only to be dropped for the tour of Italy and England, was not on the same package. Sarfu admitted as much at the time Teichmann gained his first
It is a singular and potentially terminal crack which remains embedded in the hastily poured foundations. There were others.
The players at provincial level understood the larger implications of pay-for-play even if Sarfu did not. They formed a player’s union asking for something close to the same kind of rights and privileges granted the national
To an extent, Sarfu beggared the question by throwing the ball into the line-out of the provincial unions and then by placing restrictions on player movement to compensate for the less financially well-endowed
Legal specialists are seemingly of a mind that the challenges will certainly come to the courts somewhere down the line.
For the lawyers and agents will become increasingly important within the game. Such was the inference in the two cases involving Jacques Olivier and Christiaan Scholtz who signed forms for the rival rugby league code in Australia and then reneged.
Scholtz, who had signed to the overall league, was let off with no penalties. Olivier, who displaced James Small as wing partner for Williams in the starting line-up at Twickenham, was a different issue entirely.
He had signed directly to the club who then rightly demanded — and got — compensation when he turned down the contract he had so vehemently told the Springbok touring management did not exist.
The whole issue left a bitter taste and has done little to further the chances of other South Africans willing to switch codes in
But the exodus to the Aussie dollar grew with Pieter Muller, Heinrich Fuls, Tiaan Strauss and Christian Stewart — among others — taking the gap offered by rugby league. There will — so the insiders have us understand — be others.
A further concentrated move by the top strata of provincial players not lucky enough to have a contract with one of the big money unions will further weaken the domestic competition which saw Transvaal slide from the heights of two years ago to the status of sidelined also- rans this season.
Transvaal reacted by moving the goalposts and reappointing Christie to run their provincial fortunes next season as well as handle the national side in a season which encompasses at the very least 11 internationals and effectively starts in the first week of January when training resumes.
Christie is a hard-working man. But the fact remains that he is only a single person. Somehow, this looks a retrogressive and illogical step.
Ironically though, any flood of players out of the game could give a boost to the somewhat underdeveloped development programme, bringing new blood through at an accelerated rate. Whether this will be good for the long-term health of the game is a moot point.
But it could slot — albeit with some discomfort — into Sarfu’s dictum that teams below the national and senior interprovincial level will apply a system of affirmative
It has been a short year, an interesting and largely truimphant year. The journey between this New Year and the next — forget for a moment that we are only world champions until Cardiff in 1999 — remains one that is not without a series of unseen potholes.