It really is a funny old game

Considering recent events and liaisons how can one but compare SA Rugby to a soap opera?

In the great tradition of television serials almost every day brings a new episode of intrigue with alliances shifting like the sands of the desert.

Take the current stand-off between the top four officials, Brian van Rooyen, André Markgraaff, Mike Stofile and Theunie Lategan.

In late 2003 Van Rooyen and Markgraaff, with the support of the others, were very much in the same camp; the latter being accused of having master-minded the former’s putsch that ousted former president Silas Nkanunu and also led to the resignation of the then MD Rian Oberholzer.

Now Van Rooyen and Markgraaff are at loggerheads while Oberholzer, about whom Van Rooyen was not too complimentary when he went after Saru’s presidency, is thick as thieves with the current president in the announcement of the proposed Rainbow Cup.

Markgraaff, who was involved in a bitter battle with Stofile when they contested the junior presidential positions, is now in cahoots with his former adversary in what is a transparent bid to unseat Van Rooyen.

Lategan’s allegiance and role is unclear although one must wonder how much longer his banking employers will put up with the muck that has attached itself to him because of his involvement with SA Rugby.

On another level Francois Pienaar, who does not expend any love for Markgraaff because of the way he was sacked as Springbok captain and sent into exile, is CEO of South Africa’s bid to stage the 2011 Rugby World Cup and his key is assistant is none other than Edward Griffith – the former CEO of Sarfu so infamously “faxed” by Louis Luyt.

The bid book was handed over at a function at the usual Sandton hotel recently and in a room remarkable for the absence of rugby people the only other 1995 World Cup Springbok present was Joel Stransky – the man who kicked that dropped goal.

Staggeringly, Stransky was not referred to or acknowledged; giving further confirmation to a growing chorus that the bid is nothing more than a Francois Pienaar show that, apart from other considerations, is already on the back foot because of the behind-the-scenes machinations bedeviling the administration of South African rugby.

Certainly, it did not bode well for those working on the bid that their party took place right after SA Rugby’s worthies had been at each other’s throats, in an adjoining room, and that sports minister Mankhenkesi Stofile failed to put in his scheduled appearance.

Elsewhere Nick Mallett, who was pushed out on a trumped-up charge for the only thing he ever said that everyone agreed with, is in control of Western Province and being as outspoken as ever while Carel du Plessis and Gert Smal again trudged towards the door marked “exit.”

Another outcast, Rudolf Straeuli, arrived back in Durban after guiding Bedford to victory over Plymouth in the Powergen Shield Final and was immediately, and without input from himself, linked to the Sharks – along with former Stormers man Alan Solomons and some others in what has become a parade of the prodigals.

And each day brings dispatches that either the ministry of sport, the parliamentary portfolio committee on sport, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) or the ANC Youth League are calling SA Rugby to book.

Strange coalitions and bizarre relationships abound and like the long-running “Days of our lives” you never know who’s in bed with whom and, also like the soapies, nothing (the Super 14, the Currie Cup format, the Rainbow Cup, the appointment of coaches etc. etc.) is ever properly concluded.

Could it be that it’s like Bobby’s dream sequence in Dallas when, after a passage of two years, he woke up in the shower after ostensibly having been shot dead? Are we about to find that it has all been a figment of our imagination; that this is the ultimate outcome of the spin SA Rugby once dabbled in and that Silas and Rian are still in charge and Harry is coaching the Boks!

It would be funny if it were not so serious and begs the question – is anyone actually running South African rugby at the moment?