RUGBY
Andy Colquhoun in Fremantle
In 1850 building work began on a new detention centre to house 75 convicts, the first wave of felons despatched to Fremantle to begin a new life as far away as possible from the delicate sensibilities of British society.
Today the building is the Esplanade hotel and houses the Springbok rugby team, a fact unrelated to the first except for the fact that Harry Viljoen knows exactly how useful it is to play a “get out of jail free” card.
The card was deployed against the Wallabies a fortnight ago and has earned the Springbok coach some breathing space in which to continue the oft-talked-about process of taking the Springbok game to a new level.
The fact that he is able to do so out of the gaze of the South African public is doubly helpful and he need fear no intrusion from the locals; most of them don’t know the Boks are in town. And if they did, they probably wouldn’t care.
This is footy country (Aussie Rules Football) but then, wherever you go in Australia, it’s going to be some kind of country other than rugby country.
The 10 o’clock news on the day the Springboks arrived in town saw fit to include the fact as the 10th item in a typically exhaustive 11-item Aussie television sports bulletin. The good news is that the Boks ranked as more important than the Australian men’s under-22 basketball team; the bad news that they were deemed less significant than the national short course swimming championships.
Freo (as the locals call it) is a laidback, low-key kind of place and is not half as grand as its association with Americas Cup yachting would have you think.
If you talk sport with anyone it will be Aussie Rules and the plight of the Fremantle Dockers (bottom of the log) and of Perth’s West Coast Eagles (third from bottom) who meet in a grudge derby match on Saturday.
They’re expecting a full house of 42000 for the game and it’s a moot point whether the “sold out” signs will be going up a week later when the Springboks and the Wallabies convene at the same venue.
There have been raised eyebrows at the entrance charge of A$40 (R168), although rugby’s more moneyed following in comparison to the blue-collar sports of Rules and rugby league is expected to cheerfully carry the burden for the rare chance of seeing live Test rugby.