RUGBY: Jon Swift
TRANSVAAL, the side which fell from grace last season after a run of two years when virtually every trophy on offer became theirs as if by right, have begun to formulate their renaissance.
At the base of this are two things: the reinstatement of coach Kitch Christie at the helm he carries the double onus of remaining as national coach as well is perhaps the most important of all factors.
While few would doubt either Christies ability as a strategist and motivator of men, or have the temerity to question his integrity, it is not a situation which would be likely to occur anywhere else in the rugby-playing world.
Neither, one feels, anywhere outside New Zealand where prop Richard Loe came back into favour after the most disgraceful eye-gouging incident involving Australian winger Paul Carroza, would Johan le Roux be a serious contender.
It is, in many respects, one of those almost inconceivable oddities which sport has a way of bringing to the fore.
Le Roux, it must be stressed, has served his sentence for mistaking All Black captain Sean Fitzpatricks ear for filet mignon during the tour of New Zealand, and suffered the indignity of being sent home and going down indelibly in the column marked Infamous in rugby history. It must also be added that the TV video which was the basis of Le Rouxs conviction and banishment did not show the start of the incident in which Le Roux measured himself for dentures on the auditory part of the All Blacks anatomy.
Fitzpatrick is no fairy in tights. All Blacks especially through the sullen and arguably falsely arrogant era of coach Laurie Mains seldom are. Hookers who also carry the captaincy of the men who think that the whole rugby world owes them instant servitude, even less so.
Yet Le Roux, a fine grafting forward at his best and one of the stronger tightheads in a recent history of some weakness in depth in the crucial position in this country, is a serious contender to return to the site of his shame as a member of the Transvaal squad to contest a four-match tour in the new Super 12 competition at the end of this month.
No one, surely, would deny Le Roux his chance at rehabilitation. He has served his time and had the inner strength to put it all behind him and come back to the game which he worked so very hard to succeed at.
Even with World Cup star Balie Swart still recovering from surgery, nothing is certain as far as Le Roux is concerned yet. He still has to play his way past the likes of Ian Hattingh and Japie Barnard, Kapstok van Greunen, Brent Moyle and Neil Whitehead before he can pull the red and white Transvaal jersey over his head again.
In a way, you have to really admire Le Roux for coming back after an enforced 19-month exile. It is ironic that a lapse in character would engender such a strength in the same from the big front- rower. For, make no mistake, it takes real guts for Le Roux to turn out at all. And, should he make the squad to New Zealand for the competition spawned by the influx of media magnate Rupert Murdochs money into the game, he will face a New Zealand united in one thing: he is a marked man from the outset.
Of more immediate import to the new series, though and of possible significance to Le Rouxs future hopes of making it all the way back to the top is the Northern Transvaal clash with Canterbury at Loftus on Tuesday.
Northerns will be led by Ruben Kruger but will be without the services of World Cup tighthead Marius Hurter, who has fallen from favour and is replaced by former South African shot-put star, Jan Pienaar.
Also out of the reckoning against the New Zealand provincial line-up is fullback Theo van Rensburg, an early victim to an injured shoulder in what will surely become a very long and equally tough season for the players at top level. Christo Potgieter comes in to wear the No 15 jersey.
Another early injury is hooker Henry Tromp. But no real problems here for Northerns when they can call up Andries Truscott, already a wearer of the green and gold, to take over.
Lance Sherrell, whose educated left boot had much to do with the resurgence of Northerns as a force in local rugby last season, is also out, Jannie Kruger getting the nod in the crucial flyhalf spot.
It is a new-look Northerns in many respects, but under Kruger, a side which promises to play the kind of subdue-and-penetrate game which was always the hallmark of the men in light blue.