Mike Greenaway: You really don't know how lucky you are

Opinion

Disillusioned rugby fans here have been doing an awful lot of wondering about that curious 49-0 disintegration in Brisbane, but with my morning paper telling me that 51 policemen were killed in South Africa in the first six months of this year, I am left wondering how we put a rugby team on the field at all.

The point I am making is that sport in South Africa is a microcosm of an unstable society. Many rugby reasons have been given for the Boks' implosion against the Wallabies, and many of them are valid, but I don't believe enough credence is given to off-the-field factors that gnaw away at the foundations underpinning South African sport, with the result that the entire edifice can come crashing down when they combine with negative on-field factors .

That horrifying statistic on police fatalities illustrates that South Africa is in the grip of a violent redistribution of wealth, and tension and distrust permeate all facets of life in this country.

Sport, for example, finds itself pulled this way and that by various power-hungry groups anxious that they do not miss out. We have blacks jockeying for position with rival blacks (there are nine official black-language groups in this country), and just as hungry for a piece of the pie are Afrikaans-speaking whites, English-speaking whites and Coloureds (mixed race).

The constitution of this country speaks only of South Africans but sadly, race is as relevant today in South Africa as it was in the dark days of apartheid.

(Incidentally, in a perverse way the Springboks were arguably at their strongest when they were the sole preserve of the white Afrikaner - in unity there was strength.)

And rugby, more than any other sport in South Africa, is the playing field for one heck of a power struggle. Perhaps this is because the Springboks were the flagship of apartheid, and also because rugby is rich and glamorous.

This power struggle ensures that the administration of rugby in South Africa is poor. The current president of Saru, Regan Hoskins, is an honest and upstanding citizen who has made it his personal crusade to calm the troubled waters of rugby administration. He took over from ousted Brian van Rooyen, who is still under investigation for bad corporate governance from his turbulent time as president.

Hoskins is finding the going tough. Consider this week alone: there has been the drama over the selection of Solly Tyibilika in the team to play the All Blacks, with Jake White wrongfully accused of telling the press that Solly is a quota player, but the Government do not believe him and have suggested that he resigns; the Southern Spears (the sixth SA Super 14 team) is in court fighting Saru's decision to disband them (Saru found that the three rugby provinces making up the Spears were bankrupt and alleged that funds had been misappropriated); and two Coloured rugby players are in court on charges of murder after they beat to death an opposition white player in a club game in the Western Cape (the game was reportedly rife with racial taunts).

Does this type of thing happen in an average week in your country?

This is not the first time that White has been told to resign by Government officials eager to make quick political profit (White's transformation record is actually very good). It happens periodically.

This continual pressure to see colour in selections has worn down many a Springbok coach, although it must also be said that some coaches have seen only white. It is a job of ceaseless pressure from so many angles that it twists strong men out of shape, crumples them into a ball and tosses them onto the scrap heap.

The disunity in the national administration means the various provinces operate as separate and suspicious fiefdoms and this leaves the national coach in a difficult position because he is at the mercy of the provinces, who own the players' contracts.

Jake White once said that he would love to walk into his office one day and concentrate solely on how to beat the forthcoming opposition, but never a day goes by when he is not called on to put out a fire or to beg somebody for co-operation.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that in the professional era, South Africa's playing standards have not evolved as quickly as those of other leading rugby countries, heavenly places where in this sport the game is the only agenda and the fortunes of the national team the only priority.

Sometimes the warring factions pause for breath, allowing the Boks freedom to focus on the game, but the paper over the cracks soon tears.

So when the Boks fail miserably, as they did last week, try not to ridicule them. Pity them instead, for often they are a boat beating against the tide.

* Mike Greenaway is a rugby writer for the Natal Mercury