Evan Speechley may be a “glorified water boy”, but his job is a lot more important to the Springboks than that
RUGBY: Luke Alfred
THE sports physiotherapist’s role is overlooked by fans and journalists, yet the physio is surely one of the more crucial members of any team.
In the case of Evan Speechley, physio for the Springbok rugby side, the physical and mental wellbeing of the players is literally in his hands, for he must cure their injuries, listen to their problems and look into their souls.
“The physio’s room is often a meeting place,” Speechley said before leaving for Cape Town with the South African squad. “You can imagine what will happen in Cape Town: we won’t be able to go to the Waterfront, we’ll be stuck there in the hotel, and often guys will just come in to talk.”
Tests find Speechley sitting away from reserves and management revelling in his role of “glorified water boy” on the far side of the field. Prior to kick-off he smokes a couple of cigarettes, bites his nails and approaches the referee to tell him that the abuse — when it gets hurled — isn’t personal.
“I always get emotional during a Test and start shouting at the referee. But I don’t want to affect the players negatively, so I usually sit away from them and management,” says Speechley from a comfortable chair in the Stan Schmidt Sports Centre in Melrose, Johannesburg. “I always say how my mother is so devastated, because she sent me to ‘varsity and all I am is a water boy at the rugby. Do you know the Yiddish phrase “clabe naches”? She tells all her friends to watch her son on TV and what does he do, he carries water for the Springboks!”
A tall, phlegmatic man, Speechley may carry water on match day but for the last month he’s been hard at work. He describes Kitch Christie’s coaching technique as “power training”, consisting of weight work, step-ups and the like, a regime not all the players are familiar with and consequently one which has made his life unusually stressful.
He believes, however, that no player has been injured during the run-up who hasn’t brought an original injury or niggle to World Cup preparations. Of the Chester Williams debacle, he says he only saw Williams for the first time two-and-a-half-weeks after the Test against Western Samoa, but from then on his injury responded well. “When he went back to Cape Town for the second time he was no good at all,” insists Speechley. “He’d deteriorated for some unknown reason, so what we have to do is to get a rehab protocol that’s followed around South Africa, so that if different people are injured they can follow a national programme.”
Talking of Williams’ injury, Speechley says Williams asked him for an acupuncturist, which was fine by him. He adds that he used to work with the national soccer side and wasn’t phased by sangomas, insisting only that players take clean blades with them, in case they were cut.
More recently he was happy to let Mr Yellow Pages, Ron Holder do his thing. “Ron Holder has a totally different approach to treatment to mine,” Speechley syas.
“Initially when I heard of Ron Holder (a qualified chiropractor who worked with Francois Pienaar last week) my attitude was, there’s no way that you can go to him, I’m fine, just let me do it. But if somebody believes in some other form of treatment, you just don’t stop it.”
Holder uses a technique known as applied kinesiology, which consists of balancing the body’s various muscle systems. Unlike Speechley, who would treat an injury of the left groin, say, by working on the left groin and the left lower back, Holder would attempt to find the cause of the injury on the right hand side of the body. “This goes against all my scientific beliefs,” confides Speechley. “But I’ve seen it work.”
Speechley’s acceptance –at time advocacy — of alternative medicine indicates just how far the Springboks and their management have come since that ill-disciplined first tour to England and France in 1992. He recounts how then the team were being paid an allowance of approximately Stg 22 per day, but because they were often housed outside of town, it cost them too much to travel in. Consequently, he was often at work until 12 at night, which was when the porn station started on French TV. We now know why the Springboks played so badly in France.