/ 21 July 2000

Lomu and the law of the jungle

A South African father explains to his son, who lives in England, why the sensational All Blacks victory against the Wallabies does not spell disaster for the Springboks on Saturday

Thanks for the letter of sympathy, son, although I do feel you go a bit far in suggesting we sue for peace and adopt ping- pong as the national sport. I must admit that waiting for Saturday’s match is akin to crouching in the trenches, listening to the rumble of an approaching German blitzkrieg. But then we hardy souls who live on this continent know life is tough and we have our ways of dealing with it. Take Jonah “The Destroyer” Lomu, for example. He did devastate the Aussies, but against the Boks he will be the All Blacks’ Achilles heel. Why? Because Lomu is like a wildebeest (“Gnu” to you). It has everything, does the wildebeest; the beard of the patriarch, the head of a buffalo, the hindquarters of a horse. But for all the appearances he will fail when attention is upon him; he can’t handle expectations. Above all he has no defences against The Eye. . “The Eye”? Ah, that is one of my big regrets, son, that you left these shores before you had imbibed the secrets of the bushveld. Of which The Eye is, of course, the first and the greatest of them all. You’ve probably come across it in your part of the world, but haven’t recognised it for what it was – like a bow and arrow one might see in a dusty glass cabinet in a museum and pass by, unless you are fortunate enough to spot the faded card saying “this was drawn at Agincourt”. In the same way you will have seen the vestiges of The Eye if you have ever mistaken the portals of a London club for a department store and, sauntering in, felt a bit uneasy at being accosted by a character looking like a refugee from rehearsals for a costume drama. Taking in his inflamed nose, squiff hairdo and the look of supplication in his face as his right eyebrow goes through the contortions to be expected of an aerobics trainer trying to give birth, you would no doubt have brushed him aside with a dismissive: “Sorry, mate. No change !” If you had then taken a few moments to follow this broken fellow to his post – a candle-lit broomcloset under the stairs – you would have heard his muttered imprecations as he picked up the shard of a looking glass and started grimacing frantically into it. And if I had been with you to play the role of the faded museum- card I would have drawn you aside and whispered a sorrowful explanation of the scene.

When, precisely, the British Empire lost the knack of The Eye is uncertain, as was the discovery of it. It clearly had its origins with the Druids and I, personally, have long held the belief that it was the smouldering looks given by Queen Boadicea as she trundled along in her chariot, rather than her slashing hub-caps, which drove her subjects to patronise the wrong side of the road (a habit which, incidentally, along with English cuisine, has proved such an effective deterrent to conquest over the centuries.)

It is similarly safe to make the broad assumption that it was somewhere in the great spaces of Africa that The Eye was lost to the British. Agoraphobia did, no doubt, play its part – the English fear of open spaces (so evident now among their rugby players) finding expression in their habit of pouncing around on the battlefields in uniforms of red and white, no doubt intended to replace immediate reality with the mask of reputation at a distance.

But the tragedy of those times was encapsulated in the cavalry charge, devised at the height of imperial glory as an unanswerable means of delivering The Eye at close quarters. Its purpose was forgotten in the din and pride of Balaclava and the purposelessness sadly played out in the Transvaal as the gallant horsemen wheeled uncertainly at the conclusion of their brave gallops, their puzzlement as to what they were to do now that they had got there shorn of any hope of answer by long-range Mauser fire. But even if they had rediscovered their purpose in those baffling years of the Boer War it would have been too late, because the bushveld was the birthplace of man and those who today are born in it are suckled on its secrets. And the birthright of The Eye is there for them to further imbibe in the salivating grin the lioness gives to the nervously prancing wildebeest; the flat stare of contempt the buffalo gives to the lioness slinking past and the hurried shuffle of the buffalo herd when the heffalump ambles by with jaundiced and wrinkled gaze. It was in knowledge of the certain power

of The Eye that Zulu warriors used to race down upon the Boer laagers, reckless of rifle and cannon fire, exhorting themselves and one another to “just keep going ’til you can see the whites of their eyes!” All unsuspecting that, within the wagons’ ring, the command was so cruelly echoed: “Fire when you see the whites of their eyes…” Ah, sad it is to reflect on how often that

fatal wisdom must have been shared between white and black infants’ heads bobbing at some innocent black woman’s breast. So ignore all your commentators and pundits who bray on about the “tight five”, the “advantage line”, “the penetration of the backs” and the momentum of “steam engines in ballet shoes”. It is in the level gaze that power lies with this game. Let’s just hope we have the time between five-yard scrums. David Beresford