The Bok comes first

Well here we go again. The first rugby column of a new year and, frankly, my head is already spinning with dates and numbers.

There’s a part of me that still hasn’t left France 2007 but, can you believe it October 20, 2007 in the Stade de France is already more than 450 days ago. Why can’t things slow down?

As I write this I am surrounded by printed sheets of paper – Fixtures Lists. I have been trawling the web and, unlike all coaches and rugby players claim, I have been reading the newspapers.

And what I see is alarming. The 2009 Super 14 kicks off on the most ominous of dates – Friday the 13th of February; a month away.

The Super 14 Final is scheduled for Saturday May 30 – the same day the 13th British Isles rugby tourists to South Africa play their first match on tour; against a Highveld XV at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg.

On June 20 the Springboks take on the Lions in the first test at the Absa Stadium in Durban; the second is the following week (the 27th) at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria and the tour finale is at Ellis…, um, Coca-Cola Park in Johannesburg on July 4.

But, as they say in the ads, that’s not all. Just three weeks after the departure of the Lions, on July 25 the Springboks will be back in action against the All Blacks in a Tri-Nations test in Bloemfontein; followed a week later (August 1) by New Zealand, again, in Durban and then the Wallabies another week on (August 8) at Newlands in Cape Town.

Let me put this differently. Six tests in the space of 49 days or seven weeks against the cream of British and Irish rugby plus New Zealand and Australia. Phew!

Then the Boks will mercifully have a week off before they will have to pack their bags to travel to Perth, Brisbane and Hamilton (yes, according to the fixtures) for the away legs of the Tri-Nations on successive Saturdays (August 29, September 5 and September 12).

In between the Currie Cup will start while financial imperatives will dictate the usual excursion to the north; fixtures and dates of which are still awaited.

It is an alarming prospect for the Boks – not least the fact that the crammed fixture list makes no provision for a warm-up test before taking on the Lions; meaning that the Boks will go into the must-win series to avenge the defeat of 1997 having not played together since that wonderful day at Twickenham in November last year when they smashed England 42-6.

It’s not ideal and might have to be remedied – but how? What if one or more of our sides advance to the latter stages of the Super 14 while there is also the consideration that an extra test will add to the extreme burden already heaped on the Boks?

What is clear is that everyone concerned in South African rugby needs to get together and thrash out some priorities.

The Super 14 coaches are under massive pressure to produce results and don’t forget that the Sharks, Bulls, Stormers, Cheetahs and Lions pay a big portion of the players’ salaries.

However the Lions (the British ones) have to be beaten, we have to improve on a pretty dismal record in the Tri-Nations and experience has shown that defeats in the UK and France can be pretty damaging.

So what to do? I believe that, just as we did in 2007 when we targeted the World Cup above all else, we must focus on the Lions first, the Tri-Nations second and the Super 14 third. If the like of John Smit, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Schalk Burger, Juan Smit, Fourie du Preez, Ruan Pienaar and any others considered indispensable to the cause need to be nursed then it must be done.

It might be tough on John Plumtree, Frans Ludeke, Rassie Erasmus, Naka Drotske and Loffie Eloff but the Springbok, whether it is on the left or right of the jersey, simply has to come first.