Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2020 i SA RUGBY

It’s been more than six months since South Africa’s professional teams were last seen in action. Yet, squads returned to contact training from September, and all indications suggest that we are finally entering the home straight towards the kick-off of domestic competition. In the words of our cover star Makazole Mapimpi (see pages 22-26), this time away from the game has provided the opportunity to ‘think about subjects a little differently′. Besides finding out more about Mapimpi′s inspiring journey to the peak of the sport, he opens up about his passion to fight against gender-based violence. It’s a powerful, pertinent message. As we continue to tackle topics that have come to the fore in South African rugby in recent times, we lay out the facts related to the lack of…

A lot has been said about the Currie Cup competition over the past few years and how it has become a watered-down product But just maybe, as a result of Covid-19 and the ever-changing face of rugby across the world, it’s time to revisit a firm favourite of South African rugby and to rekindle some neighbourly love. It’s been exciting to hear that a strengthened domestic competition could kick off soon, and this could remain the only option if travel restrictions continue into 2021. All this talk has got me reflecting on my best memories of the Currie Cup, as a player and rugby lover. Born in the 1970s – jeez, I’m getting old – and watching my first real Test match, I can recall waking up with my dad…

In early May, Rassie Erasmus shared a video of a team talk conducted in 2019 during a Springbok jersey presentation. ‘Mapimps. Not always nice to be wrong, but so happy I was wrong here!’ wrote Erasmus In a post on Instagram. ‘I remember we were here a year ago, and you had that knee injury,’ Erasmus said in reference to Maplmpl on the video. ‘You kept asking for your knee to be pulled and played the whole game with it, but we didn’t know what was wrong. I thought you were pretending, and said, “I don’t know if this guy can play for the Springboks again”, and “I don’t know if I can trust him.’ But you went on, fixed the knee, and have played the way you’ve played... It’s…

Jonathan Mokuena was, until recently, one of South African rugby’s great success stories. Relatively few black Africans have risen to the highest level as players and even fewer have gone on to make a successful transition into coaching in the elite competitions. Born on the Cape Flats, Mokuena overcame a series of challenges to rise through the junior rugby ranks, captain the Blitzboks and then star for the Lions and Griquas. After hanging up his boots, the no-nonsense loose forward moved into coaching and led Pukke to Varsity Cup finals in 2016 and 2018. He also coached the Leopards in the Currie Cup First Division. At that stage, the pathway to higher honours seemed so clear. Swys de Bruin, Nollis Marais, Sean Everitt and John Dobson all coached Vodacom Cup…

How did your new role as coach at the University of the Western Cape come about? A friend alerted me to the advert. I was pretty hesitant to apply at the start, because I’ve always coached at either national or Super Rugby level. The only exception was with the juniors at Western Province, but it was still with professional players. I wasn’t sure if the Varsity Cup would sit well with what I could offer, or the way I think in terms of high-performance sport. I eventually decided to put my name in the hat, and it was only the second time in my career that I went through a formal interview process. There were so many candidates and I think there were seven or eight who made the shortlist.…

Werner Кок has made ал indelible mark on the international sevens stage after seven blistering years with the Blitzboks, but now his attention has shifted sharply to making the same impact in the 15-man code. Kok, at 27, feels his career has reached a natural watershed after achieving just about everything on offer in sevens and now he is hungry to reinvent himself as a centre at the Sharks and, he hopes, the Springboks. Kok has been a poster boy for the sevens circuit with his trademark, tousled blond locks, his never-say-die attitude and his uncompromising physicality. He was the 2015 World Sevens Player of the Year, he won a bronze medal a year later at the Rio Olympics and his eight-pack physique has made him the face of nutrition…

The only disappointment of the Crusaders’ season was popular coach Scott Robertson holding off his traditional breakdancing routine after his men defeated the Highlanders in Christchurch to wrap up the title with one round to play. ‘It’s such a different feeling,’ Robertson said as he reflected on his team’s latest crown. ‘It’s a unique situation, where you win the competition before it’s finished. That’s why I didn’t do any back spinning at this stage, because we’ve still got a Job to do. I think the haka sufficed.’ The Crusaders enjoyed their success a little too much, damaging the trophy in the process, and as fate would have it they did not have to play the Blues in the final round after coronavirus concerns arose again.…

There can be liberations in accepting that change is needed. In an age when it feels like the mere concepts of compromise, concession and even accepting help can be lost among the angry voices, we may not notice how those who embrace them have grown. At first. For example, it was the fear of an outsider, not an established name who had earned 36 Test caps, when Anthony Watson panicked about being asked to leave England’s pre-World Cup camp in 2019. He had only just come back from a 17-month ordeal where he had injured, and then shockingly reinjured, his Achilles. And although Eddie Jones reassured him time and again that his departure wasn’t a sign that the coach was ready to cut the cord, we all know it’s the…

Dane Coles has become well-known for cheap shots and cheeky antics. Much of it is good-natured, and he saved some of his best work for the opening round of Super Rugby Aotearoa. Coming up against former Hurricanes teammate Beauden Barrett, Coles produced a memorable break and then burst through the fullback’s attempted tackle to score in the comer. Coles then jumped up. and with a few Hurricanes players, surrounded Barrett with screams of joy as he got caught up in the opposition’s celebrations. Reflecting on the moment, Barrett said It felt like destiny that he had to be there in the thick of things. ‘That just happened in slow motion, it was almost like it was meant to be. Fair play to him. He’s pretty good in the wide channel…

Springbok Women’s captain Babalwa Latsha’s ever-rising standing in Europe’s booming women’s rugby market could be a watershed moment for prospective professionals in Africa. Despite initiatives at grassroots, club, provincial and national level and across all age grades, the women’s game in South Africa is yet to take off. As it stands, it is still categorised as amateur, and without the backing of sponsors it remains a pipe dream for the sport to reach the heights of its men’s equivalent. ‘Back home, we are eons away from the men,’ says Latsha. ‘In Europe it is normal that women’s and men’s sport are on the same level. Women’s rugby in South Africa has a very long way to go. We need to make women’s rugby appealing to the general public. We need…

South African rugby finds itself between a rock and a hard place. The Springboks’ participation in the Rugby Championship – which was hopefully set to take place over November and December – would boost the union’s coffers and mitigate the players’ individual financial losses. The same players, of course, will have precious little time to regain their match fitness in a domestic tournament before travelling to take part in an international competition. Is there a better alternative at this point? I don’t think so. The Rugby Championship must go ahead – providing there are no safety concerns. One cannot ignore the financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis, and how a tournament such as the Rugby Championship may alleviate the financial pressure felt by the unions. I’d love to see international…

What is your best Lions memory? It is a really weird thing to explain. I am a very proud Englishman. So I know what it meant to me when I pulled on an England shirt The British & Irish Lions are different. You are the best of everyone, of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. It is never an easy start to any Lions tour. You have spent the last four years kicking lumps out of each other and you have got to put aside those differences you have. I will always remember one of the coaches, Sir Ian McGeechan, saying that you leave your nationality at the door. You are not an Englishman, Irishman, Welshman or Scotsman, you are a British & Irish Lion. Don’t sit in little cliques. We…

WHAT SETS MAPIMPI APART ‘Makazole is a very special player, and you realise that when you work with him. He was a late developer who only started playing Super Rugby In 2017, but three years later he’s won a World Cup. It shows that he is a very good student of the game, and even at his age he continues to learn. He is one of those players who everyone enjoys being around. When he first Joined the squad he was a bit quiet, but once he gets comfortable with people around him, you start seeing how it brings out the best in him. Of course he has a special bond with Lukhanyo Am, but It’s the same with him and someone like Willie le Roux, who plays an important…

♦ Only two out of six franchises (the Kings and Stormers) have backed a black Super Rugby head coach since 2009. ♦ As many as 25 white head coaches were used across the franchises during this period. Deon Davids coached the Kings between 2016 and 2019, while Allister Coetzee was at the helm of the Stormers between 2010 and 2015. ♦ Only two out of six franchises have backed a black head coach to spearhead their Currie Cup side. Coetzee coached WP between 2009 and 2014. David Maidza was in charge of Eastern Province in 2013, Ryan Felix in 2017 and 2018 and Chumani Booi in 2019. ♦ Coetzee (head coach, 2016-17) and Davids (assistant coach, 2020-) have gone on to hold positions at the Springboks. The national side has…

‘My original plan was to finish this season of sevens with the Tokyo Olympics Included, because while I have come close to doing it all with the sevens, I have not won an Olympic gold. ‘I would still love to win that gold In Tokyo If it all goes ahead and I can negotiate some leave from the Sharks. But sevens is in a state of great uncertainty. Hong Kong and Singapore have already been cancelled this year, and now Cape Town and Dubai. That leaves us with maybe eight tournaments left and I have to play at least two tournaments for the Blitzboks to qualify. But yes there is a chance for one last hurrah. ‘In the meantime, there are some sevens attributes that can give me an edge…

Two more seasons. That’s how long Rory Kockott has given himself before retirement. It could have been sooner. ‘To be honest, this was going to be my last season,’ he says of the 2020-21 Top 14 campaign, which – for his club Castres Olympique – kicks off in September. ‘I was very happy to draw the line. I was happy to finish on a strong foot.’ Head coach Mauricio Reggiardo and club president Pierre-Yves Revol had other ideas. ‘The club asked me to play another season after this,’ Kockott says. ‘After a lot of thought, I decided to play one more. Then I’m sure that’ll be the finish line.’ THE TRUTH IS, KOCKOTT’S TEST SELECTION DIDN’T SIT WELL WITH MANY IN FRANCE Kockott will be approaching 36 when he passes…

Anthony Watson was a British & Irish Lions starter In 2017. and feels he has transformed hIs approach since. If selected for the 2021 tour to South Africa, he says he’d be a different player; but at the same time would want to replicate the happy feeling he carried through the last tour. He must have been in good nick back then? ‘Well, actually it was the worst physically I’ve been!’ he says. ‘That was the worst pain I’ve ever been In. In my LIfe, for those eight weeks. My Achilles tendon was like... well the pain was a joke. ‘But mentally I felt so good. I don’t know why. I wasn’t nervous for any of those Tests. It just felt so good in terms of all the preparation I…

Eight South African players representing the Sale Sharks chose not to kneel in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in August, sending self-righteous liberals into meltdown. None of the players has explained their decision to remain standing. They don’t have to. It is within their rights to do so. Given the spirit of the time, it doesn’t look good. But the optics are largely irrelevant. You can’t police free will, as so many have tried to do by shaming and harassing the players involved. There is a complex mix of factors rooted in your conditioning and socialisation, particularly in your formative years, that will determine whether you kneel or stand. As a liberal progressive who was raised with principles that underpin my world view and ideology, I would…

CRAIG LEWIS SAYS JACO KRIEL This may seem like a left-field selection. Kriel hasn’t played since making a welcome return to the Lions, but he is a player who still boasts plenty of potential. The dynamic flank headed abroad in 2018, but his stint with English club Gloucester did not work out the way it was expected, and it was confirmed in February that he’d rejoined the Lions. Having undergone ankle surgery last December, Kriel was just days away from a comeback game for the Lions, but the Super Rugby season was then suspended. Kriel recently turned 31, but his experience will be seen as a blessing at the Lions, where the squad has undergone considerable change with several leading players having made an exit in recent years. It shouldn’t…

ROSKO SPECMAN ‘One thing you can’t take back is time, so spend it wisely,’ remarked the Cheetahs wing who was happy to see his parents after a long time apart during lockdown. DAMIAN WILLEMSE ‘Coffee pit stop with the Skip,’ grinned the Stormers flyhalf with captain Siya Kolisi, after a fitness session in Green Point CHESLIN KOLBE ‘Good to get out on the field again after 6 months,’ noted the Toulouse wing with Dillyn Leyds, Raymond Rhule and Rynhardt Elstadt, after a pre-season friendly between Toulouse and La Rochelle. VICTOR MATFIELD ‘Great tjomme in Kalahari,’ reflected the legendary lock after a weekend away with former Bulls teammates Johan Roets, Danie Rossouw, Jaco Pretorius and Fourie du Preez. CHRIS DRY ‘The boys are back #preseason,’ said the Blitzboks veteran before a…

Odwa Ndungane, another Springbok who hails from the Eastern Cape, says it has been a joy to watch Mapimpi’s progression. ‘There’s one thing that is always going to be a factor when It comes to a wing, and that’s out-and-out pace, which is what Makazole has. Whenever he has an opportunity, he seems to finish that opportunity nine out of 10 times. ‘He’s such a well-rounded player now. When he was younger you could see he perhaps didn’t have the necessary foundational training, but with toplevel coaching he’s developed his game to become a top International player. ‘I remember when I first played against him, he was a solid guy. There may have been a time when some doubted his ability and said he wasn’t strong enough in his tackles…

A Western Cape man through and through, it came as a bit of a surprise to see Nizaam Can return from a stint with Wasps not in the colours of the Stormers, but of their old rivals, the Bulls. Carr was raised in Mitchells Plain, schooled at Bishops College and until his move to Coventry, had spent his entire life and rugby career in the Western Cape, making just short of 100 appearances for the Stormers. ‘People told me on social media that I am in the wrong blue colours/ Carr tells SA Rugby magazine. ‘At the end of the day, everybody knows you have to take care of your family and I felt this was best for me. I was passionate and longing to win something, whether it’s the…

For those who care deeply about the local game, the announcement at the end of August that the board of the Kings had voluntarily withdrawn the team from participation in any domestic rugby competitions in 2020 would have felt like a sucker punch. The news came just a couple of days after renewed reports had suggested SA Rugby may be forced to reduce its number of franchises, and all indications are that the Kings can no longer be kept afloat ‘Following several weeks of interrogation of the Kings’ financial state of affairs we were left with a straightforward choice,’ said Kings chairman Andre Rademan. We could have opted to field the Kings in the domestic competitions mooted by SA Rugby for the sport’s post-lockdown resumption. But if we did, it…

How was the news conveyed to you that you were no longer part of the Bulls’ plans? The first I heard was when the articles came out that stated Jake White wanted to get rid of, or not use, a couple of Bulls players and my name was on that list. At first I wasn’t bothered by the news as I had just signed a two-year contract extension with the Bulls. I thought it was all just speculation. When I was officially informed, it was like a punch in the gut. I left feeling numb. Did you ever suspect It was coming? I have said in previous interviews that I didn’t see myself playing for another union in South Africa but things can change quite quickly, nothing is guaranteed, not…

The October release of Chasing the Sun, the five-part documentary of the Springboks’ journey to winning last year’s World Cup, will either come at a good or bad time for the country’s rugby fans. Whether you consider the timing of the release to be perfect or otherwise, it is essentially two sides of the same Covid-19 coin. On the one hand the intimate behind-the-scenes revelations of how Rassie Erasmus and his merry band of underdogs took the low road to reaching and dominating the World Cup final is a timely reminder of what fellow countrymen committed to working together could do. On the other, the pandemic – aided and abetted by the recriminations over the Black Lives Matter movement – keeping us in our silos, seems to have deepened the…

JULY 2011: Former Sharks and Lions scrumhalf Rory Kockott agrees to join French Top 14 Rugby team Castres on a temporary contract. JANUARY 2013: Castres deny rumours that Kockott will follow coaches Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers to Racing 92 at the end of the season, but say he would be free to leave If the club fails to qualify for the Champions Cup. JUNE 2013: Kockott scores 13 points, including a try. as Castres beat Toulon 19-14 in the Top 14 final. FEBRUARY 2014: After Toulouse’s advances are rejected, a widely expected switch to Toulon comes to nothing as Kockott reveals he has decided to remain at Castres. He signs a three-year deal. JUNE 2014: in Jonny Wilkinson’s final game as a professional, Kockott and Castres are on the…

Mischief seems to find Dane Coles. It always has. Growing up on the Kapiti Coast, before becoming an All Blacks hooker looked like a certainty, Coles was sneaking into the henhouse on his pal’s farm to pilfer ammo – no passing car was safe from gooey camage. ‘We definitely found a way to get in trouble!’ Coles remembers. ‘We used to get the eggs and go egg cars, stuff like that. And then the cars would stop and we’d bloody run away as fast as we could. ‘It is a small town. A few times word got out and they were straight round to my mate’s house. We got in a bit of trouble ... so it was a good life lesson!’ Some could suggest Coles is still a fan…

How do you see your Job at World Rugby? To make the game as safe as possible for players. But not just to focus on the negative side of injury but also on the positives. Rugby brings a lot to the table: team participation, a sense of community, physical activity. I’ve been lucky to take over from Dr Martin Raftery, who did a phenomenal job in revolutionising medical standards. Rugby was one of the first sports to implement an off-field assessment for concussion. Previously we had about 26 seconds to assess a potential concussion; getting someone off the pitch and having 10 minutes to make that assessment significantly improved how well we could make a decision about a player. At the 2011 World Cup, more than half the players who…

‘It is a massive achievement for any rugby player to earn their first professional contract, and to achieve this is in women’s rugby is a particularly remarkable feat. ‘Women’s 15-a-slde rugby Is still an amateur sport in South Africa, mainly due to the lack of sponsorship and funding, but despite this Babalwa has proved that with passion and dedication anything is possible. ‘Given her academic achievements and her success on the field, she is a true inspiration to many young female and male rugby players as she has shown that nothing is impossible, regardless of one’s background.’…

15. GIO APLON At the Stormers, I hated defending against him because I felt like a goalkeeper. I just had to choose a side and hope he would be there. 14. HOSEA GREAR Hosea is one of those wings with a Jonah Lomu-type threat – he can sidestep off both feet and also bump you off if you stand still. 13. RONNIE COOKE Ronnie is another very good defender. He also had a bit of speed and a fighting personality. Very underrated. 12. DE WET BARRY A back with a forward’s heart. He is humble and hardworking, and enjoyed defending and putting himself into dark places. A guy who sacrificed for the team. 11. SIRELI NQELEVUKI We played together at the Stormers. A 114kg wing who was also unbelievably fast.…