When England played France in Marseilles two weeks ago it was the world’s first view of the new Nike kit designed for the Rugby World Cup. The England hooker’s shirt lasted one scrum and half the players had no numbers on their backs by the time the first quarter had elapsed. Clearly this won’t do and it’s time for a rethink on design.
Nike also happens to be the kit sponsor for the Springboks and while they may be looking at improving fabric tension and stitching patterns for England and France, the South African version of the shirt should present fewer problems: following the medieval method of penitence, it just needs to be made of hair.
Imagine how successful the Springbok World Cup campaign would be if, instead of adopting the slogan, ‘Our blood is greenâ€, they marched to the rhythm of ‘our shirts are hairâ€.
Hair shirts were traditionally worn as a constant reminder of original sin. The only problem for the Springboks is to work out which sin they wish to remember. Is it a sin of omission? Rudolf Straeuli decided to ignore the ‘connotations of racism†in the Geo Cronje/Quinton Davids affair. Or is it a sin of commission? Everyone took a swipe at Rian Oberholzer for using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
The statements that have flown out of Cape Town and Durban over the past 10 days would suggest that the latter sin is the important one. Hardly a day goes by without someone apologising to Oberholzer, and he’s not even in the country!
On Tuesday the barrel was scraped when Straeuli and Springbok team manager Gideon Sam apologised to the nation generally and to Oberholzer specifically, as though the latter were not a member of the former.
In a joint statement they said: ‘We may have committed an error of judgement in the manner in which we handled the issue but declare that at the time and with the limited knowledge at our disposal we believed our actions were in the best interests of the team and in their ongoing preparations for the World Cup campaign.â€
Whereupon Oberholzer, summoning the magnanimity that is synonymous with his role as managing director of SA Rugby, asserted that in the interests of the team, the sponsors, the supporters and the nation as a whole the apology of the two officials could be accepted and that with this in mind (my italics) they supported their coach and manager.
He went on: ‘Accordingly they have been allowed to continue with their duties even though Sarfu views the matter in an extremely serious light.â€
Well whoopee-do, but let’s not lose sight of the big picture here. Racism is, apparently, so endemic in our rugby that former judge Edwin King’s probe has been upgraded to a full judicial inquiry (but not a government-appointed commission of inquiry) and, to that end, will only begin next year. What’s important now, apparently, is to send 30 ingénues to Australia to be hung out to dry in front of the world’s media.
The first press conference on Australian soil promises to be a doozy, every bit as entertaining in a blackly humorous way as its counterpart in New Zealand in 1981. Maybe Corné Krige should take time off from bonding with his coach to speak to one of the selectors, the captain of that fateful tour, Wynand Claassen. Maybe then Krige might realise the enormity of what lies ahead.
It seems that one of Krige’s predecessors in the captaincy hot seat is well aware that two months is a long time in rugby, for Bob Skinstad popped up in Hong Kong this week to speak at a rugby function. He refused to be drawn on the racism probe, but said he intended being in Australia from the quarterfinals on and would be fit and ready to play.
Those with long memories may recall that in 1995 the South African Rugby Football Union based much of its marketing strategy on Chester Williams, the one player of colour likely to be included in a full-strength Springbok side. Much to their chagrin Williams was injured just before the tournament began and spent the first half of it like Banquo’s ghost, peering down from billboards and up from airport trolleys.
Williams reappeared in time for the quarterfinals, courtesy of the departure from the Bok squad of Pieter Hendricks, played a starring role thereafter and everyone, including the marketing people, was happy. Skinstad clearly has something similar in mind and to avoid any trace of guilt by association has left the country.
The marketing people would be more than happy to accept Skinstad back into the fold, even at a virtually posthumous stage of proceedings, because, as was the case in 1999, they have based much of their strategy on him, apparently blind to the clear signs of decline in his play.
Herein may reside the real reason for the postponement of the King inquiry and the reason that Oberholzer specifically mentioned the interests of the sponsors in his statement on Tuesday. It’s hard enough attracting big-name sponsors to a team that is now officially ranked sixth in the world, but if that team is tainted by the spectre of racism it becomes a virtual impossibility.
So let’s put everything on the backburner and all pull together for the World Cup. Let’s get those brands out there, and let’s blame the media for making a black-and-white issue out of the Rainbow Nation. Let’s sell those replica shirts (hairless ones, naturally) and let’s pretend that not reaching the quarterfinal stage was all part of a cunning plan to send the Springboks into Africa to uplift the game there during the qualifying process for the 2007 World Cup.
When this team comes home with its tail between its legs the intoler-able strain placed upon it by the on-again-off-again investigation can happily be blamed and everything in the garden will be rosy once the King inquiry is concluded (some time in 2005). Believe that and you’ll believe that the sun moves round the Earth.