Two young Kiwis have taken a year off from their studies to share their rugby knowledge with a Mitchells Plain club. Marianne Merten reports
Two young New Zealand rugby players have introduced their take on the game to a Cape Flats team as part of an exchange programme with the Auckland Rugby Football Club.
Afa Kepu (22) and Cameron Clark (20) are playing this season with the Mitchells Plain-based Silvertree Club, which over several years developed strong links to the Auckland club from which the majority of Auckland Blues Super 12 players are chosen.
“I am here to share what I know about rugby and to play rugby,” said Kepu. “I just let them know what they’ve got passion for the game. They want to win; they are committed to the game.”
The exchange is the result of personal networking from 1992 when Silvertree coach Sedick Sieed attended coaching courses in New Zealand. The seeds for future contacts were sown during his month-long stay, which included special sessions with former All Black Bruce Robertson, known for his refusal to tour South Africa.
In 1998 Silvertree became the first black club to tour abroad after having to overcome several obstacles thrown in its way by provincial rugby politics. It won two of its three games in New Zealand. Players met All Black stars like Jonah Lomu, Eric Rush, Peter Fatiolofa and Craig McDowell and had a coaching session with Auckland Blues coach Guy Smith.
The first New Zealand rugby player, Bevan Pickett, came to Mitchells Plain last year, but could not return because of a broken hand.
“They are here to do a job,” said Sieed. “Our game plans, our way of playing and our set pieces have benefited.”
Captain Shaheen Kader (28) agreed: “They are very physical like us. They brought a lot of inspiration to the club.” And, according to Kader, mental conditioning has now taken root among players largely because of Kepu’s strong focus on mental preparation and discipline.
There is little but the love of the game to keep Silvertree players going. The twice-weekly training sessions take place in the dim lights of three mobile lamps on the ramshackle Lentegeur sports grounds. Until two years ago, only the headlights of players’ cars made practice possible. The change room is bare and there are no showers the geyser, which the club installed, was stolen soon afterwards.
Sponsorship is non-existent as are funds from the rugby development programme. The club raises money through regular karaoke evenings and “eat-and-treat” social evenings.
There is not a single Stormers, Western Province or Springbok rugby emblem in sight. Instead thick Auckland rugby jackets keep the chill away.
Silvertree was established in District Six in 1954, but had to relocate to Mitchells Plain because of forced removals. There is much pride among the club’s former players in having played for Green Point the bastion of coloured rugby during the apartheid years. Many scoff at the Springboks’ recently discovered role of strong forwards a long-standing feature of coloured rugby and the recruitment of overseas coaches to teach the “new” game of running rugby with which they have been familiar for years.
Six years ago Silvertree was in the zones, but today it is in the top of the club log. In 1998 it won the regional competition and advanced to the premier league, which it won in 1999. The club’s first team was unbeaten for seven games last year. The renewed vigour stems from a change of vision to focus on youngsters after the loss of several promising players following unification.
Silvertree president William Dyers said the participation of the New Zealand players has had unexpected spin-offs for the club.
“Wherever we play the first thing people ask is: ‘Where are the New Zealanders?’ Everybody wants to tackle them to make them feel they are in South Africa.”
And that is something only too familiar to Kepu. “They love to pull myhair. I say: ‘Can’t you play rugby? Pulling hair is not part of the game’.”
Both Kepu, whose younger brother toured South Africa with the Auckland under-21 team, and Clark took a year off their studies in law and sports science respectively to play at Silvertree.
It is Clark’s first time overseas and an eye opener as he comes to grips with the old and new South Africa. “It’s not quite what I expected. I was told it was a coloured team, but not about the Muslim culture,” Clark says, as he cracks a joke about being the only “white boy on the field” to the amusement of his team members.
“From what I’ve seen there’s a long way to go, but there’s a lot of skilful players,” he said, adding his surprise over the lack of black players in the provincial and national sides.
Both New Zealanders may have come to grips with local rugby, but they laughingly admit that Afrikaans has stumped them. “I went into the first game knowing more swearwords [than line-outs calls],” Clark admits.
Asked how he liked his stay, Kepu does not hesitate: “If I have the chance to come back, I will. It’s totally different here, the culture The party life is 10, 20 years ahead of New Zealand.”