After the Francois Pienaar debacle Springbok coach Andre Markgraaff has been dubbed `Saddam Hussein’ by the players, and it’s not just because they both have moustaches
RUGBY:Jon Swift
IN examining the Francois Pienaar debacle it must be understood at the outset that South African rugby is, and always has been, reliant on the FU factor. It is an overtly arrogant mindset based on the patronising idea that players are not assets but merely disposable units.
The axing of Pienaar – along with several other decisions of late – have highlighted this entrenched iconoclasm.
Nowhere was this more evident among the sea of allegations, acusations, half-truths and innuendo which has all but swamped the facts of the issue, than in coach Andre Markgraaff’s reading of a question on a somewhat insipid TV panel discussion this week.
What, the coach was asked, about the 43- million South Africans Pienaar dedicated the World Cup victory to last June. In his reply lay all that is wrong with the game right now. Markgraaf – interestingly now dubbed Saddam Hussein by the players – pointed to the adverse reaction which greeted the 32-15 trouncing of the Springboks by Will Carling’s England side at Loftus Versveld and the subsequent euphoria which followed the home side’s revenge in the 27-9 victory at Newlands the following weekend.
Markgraaff had missed the point entirely and brought the FU factor squarely into play. It is not about the bums already in the seats, but about the bums which haven`t got there.
The public hanging of a national hero impacts not just on the game, but on the nation. The good men like Pienaar, Kitch Christie and Morne du Plessis did for the game and the spirit they helped engender among the non-rugby playing public canot be underestimated.
There was then a feeling that this was truly a national game and not a pastime that was the sole preserve of the white Afrikaner. To have achieved this change in perceptions in such a short space of time was remarkable.
To have gone as far down the road to the destruction of this perception as quickly as the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) has managed to do is a tragedy.
There is a lack of the bigger picture. Just think of the negative feelings raised in Soweto, Gugulethu and Mndantsane over the selection of Henry Tromp … not to mention the trauma to the former felon himself.
Stop for a moment and examine the reaction to the axing of James Small and the schoolmasterly timbre of the rapprochement, with Markgraaff taking the line that now that the massivley talented winger had taken his cuts and done his lines he could resume his seat at the back of the class.
Neither of these aberrations came close to the dismissal of Pienaar though. The subsequent resignations of Transvaal’s Ray Mordt as a national selector and Natal’s Keith Parkinson as a member of the Sarfu executive – and admittedly he was equally furious about the ignoring of Jeremy Thompson and Steve Atherton – were an indicator of this.
In the wake of the Pienaar axing Mordt summed it up better than anyone else. “The coach gets what he wants,” was his cryptic comment.
And while it would be criminal to put words into Mordt’s mouth, it must be added that the coach will probably get what he deserves.
Markgraaff has continued to talk about a “vision for the future” and his “game plan” during his somewhat mediocre reign as the pilot of the listing Springbok ship.
Much has been made of the selection of the ageing Griqua flanker Theo Oosthuizen – some four years senior to Pienaar – as the fifth flanker on the 10-match tour of South America and Europe which starts next month as an example of this coaching vision.
Much, too, has been said about Markgraaff’s thinking that one tighthead in a battery of five props is sufficient to take on the power of the Pumas and the forcefulness of the French. Marius Hurter may well grow into the prop the coach believes he will, but his limitations were graphically exposed by the All Blacks.
There has been some even more surprising vision by Markgraaff in other areas, given that he does not seem to believe Pienaar has had enough match exposure since coming back from injury in the Newlands Test against the New Zealanders – an injury, incidentally, about which the axed skipper is still awaiting an inquiry into his health and fitness from offialdom.
It is hard to understand that if form and match fitness are the criteria, why Christiaan Scholtz, who has still to play a full provincial game after injury, is included. Scholtz is a fine player, but can Markgraaff judge his fitness by visionary means? One wonders.
Behind it all stands the looming shadow of the enigmatic Louis Luyt. The Sarfu supremo has managed to do so much good for the game despite the rancorous clamour of detractors who would have him out of the game altogether. But the ego of the man and his adherence to the FU factor as a guiding principle can also not be ignored.
It is no secret that Luyt was unhappy about Pienaar’s pivotal role in the onset of the professional era, his part in the Kerry Packer affair and his spokesmanship for the players on contractual matters.
Luyt , it must be remembered, never ever forgets a real or perceived besting. His lionisation of Pienaar at this sad point in history has the sound of just so much cant.
There is also little of a covert nature about the differences of opinion between Pienaar, who has always led with grit and spontaneity on the field, and Markgraaff who is seemingly one of those admirers of the the idea that if Plan A fails, use Plan A again.
Of the coach’s game plan, the less said the better. Solitary wins against an outgunned Fijian side, Australia at home and one in five against New Zealand do not speak legions for a depth of planning.
Neither does the fact that it took the coach fully five Tests – and in his defence the injury to Johan Ackermann did not help – to sort out the lineouts, a facet of the game where he laboured himself in his playing days.
The man one has to feel equally sorry for is Gary Teichmann, who drops the caretaker role he assumed through Pienaar’s injury and becomes captain in his own right.
Teichmann is a fine player and a proven leader. He has, in the few times he has worn the coveted colours of his country, played his heart out.
He is stuck in the middle of a mess that is not of his making and surely deserves all the support he can get.
But again, it must be emphasised that there is far more to the axing of Pienaar than the seemingly simple business of playing rugby at international level.
The sadness of it all is that through the mists of the FU factor, no one in charge seems to be able to see this. Will Madiba ever apear in public again in a green and gold jersey with the proud No 6 on his back? Somehow one doubts this.
Do all the shenanigans and public relations fiascos provide a good launching pad for a well-thought-out development programme that has done the logical thing and fished where the fish are? We shall have to see.
There is a question that has still to be answered in many communities in this country. Given the option of giving one’s son a cricket bat with the possibility of playing under the administration of Krish Macherdhuj and Ali Bacher and the captaincy of Hansie Cronje, or a golf club or tennis racket and the excitement of individual effort, would the investment in the possibility of wearing a Springbok jersey be the option followed.
Right now there can be only one answer on this score. FU.
ENDS