So, barely a day after Springbok coach Peter de Villiers rebuked criticism of Ricky Januarie, a Bok match 22 was announced sans Januarie.
What gives?
On Monday, De Villiers took umbrage over criticism of Januarie, and raised the issue of race when talking about the criticism.
”I’m not concerned about Ricky’s form,” De Villiers was reported as saying. ”He made one blunder but so did a few other players. What I learned in South Africa is if you take your car to a garage and the owner is a black man and they mess it up, you never go back to that garage.
”If the owner is white, you say ‘ag, sorry, they made a mistake’ and you go back again. That is how some people live their lives in this country.”
Has De Villiers maybe now seen that race had nothing to do with criticism of Januarie? And that Januarie possibly didn’t deserve to be in the 22 for the first Test against the Lions?
This criticism hasn’t merely been isolated to the few minutes he spent on the field in that first Test. He was widely acknowledged to have been in poor form during the Super 14; he was dropped from the Stormers starting line-up during the competition; and there were murmurings that he wasn’t quite in the shape that he should be.
We all know that coaches back certain players, and De Villiers has done that in this case. But if a coach backs a player who is out of form, he should be ready for criticism, and not see it as an attack on the player’s race.
When Januarie is in form, he is an outstanding scrumhalf (although Fourie du Preez is widely regarded as the best at his game in the world). Januarie has already written himself into South African rugby folklore with his try against the All Blacks in Dunedin last year.
But in this day and age, valid criticism of a player should be allowed without the issue race being mentioned.