Only in South Africa

When the Springbok Sevens team arrived in George last week to discover that some of their bags had not arrived from Dubai, someone involved with the tournament expressed frustration by saying “It could only happen in South Africa”.

This is an expression we hear often, unfortunately particularly from white South Africans. But those who travel often will know that it is a statement which has no accuracy.

I have arrived in Dublin, on flights that started at Heathrow, to discover that my bags have gone missing. In fact, it has happened a few times, in many different cities around the world. And unless I have forgotten something, it has yet to happen to me in South Africa, where I do most of my flying.

I gave some thought to the “Only in South Africa” brigade two weeks ago at the end of the Springbok tour of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Terminal 4 at Heathrow ahead of the flight home, with its long queues heading out the door and into the car-park, was an experience I would rather forget.

We all know why Heathrow is so chaotic at the moment, but I did imagine what people back home would say given a similar situation. They would blame the country and the system and they would call it third world.

Maybe it is my imagination, but aspects of negative mind-set appear at times in the way we watch and cover sport in this country.

While watching the recent test match between the Springboks and England, when the Boks were starting to take control, I remarked to a colleague in the Twickenham press box that it would only be a matter of time before I would get a stream of SMS messages from home remarking how poor England were. No sooner had it been said than it started happening.

It was a similar story when the Boks beat Australia in the last Tri-Nations test, and for that matter a week previously, when the All Blacks were the victims in Rustenburg. In all these instances the celebration of a South African victory was tempered, perhaps overly so, by criticisms of the opposition.

Now I am not saying that they were not valid criticisms. England are extremely poor at the moment, the Wallabies have never done well in Johannesburg, and the All Blacks were playing their last match in a Tri-Nations series they had already won. You do sometimes need to temper the euphoria with a dose of reality.

But it is also wrong to negate everything your team does on the basis of perceived weaknesses in the opposition. It doesn’t appear to happen overseas, and even though England were desperately poor in their first test against the Boks, the fact they squeaked home had the English media reacting in a way that suggested a major breakthrough had been achieved.

The media reports the next day did not highlight the Springbok weakness, or highlight the obvious point that the Boks were seriously under-strength.

After the South African win in the second test, several of those same English journalists though made a point of remarking how much depth the Boks must have at their disposal if they could win like they did with so many top players left at home.

This reminds me of an argument I had with a colleague who tried to tell me I was wrong in labouring the point that the Boks were not at full strength. He maintained that the Boks were not that far from full strength, so I challenged him to name one combination at Twickenham that was Jake White’s first-choice combination. Of course he couldn’t, because there weren’t any. Not a single one, and maybe five players at best who would be first choices at the World Cup.

Back in 1997, when the Springboks lost to the British Lions, the biggest factor in the series win for the visitors was the poor South African selections and the inexperience of the coach, Carel du Plessis. But do you think the visiting media made much of that when Jerry Guscott dropped the goal that secured them the rubber in the second test in Durban?Not a chance. I had to spend the night listening to a slightly inebriated overseas hack who kept on pumping my arm and exclaiming “We did you, we did you!”

And when I responded that the Springboks were poorly selected he would not allow any of it. He pointed out that this was South Africa’s problem, not his, or British and Irish rugby’s.

During the recent rout of India by the Proteas in the one-day series, it seemed far too much was being made of the weakness of the opposition, and not enough credit was given to the South Africans for making full use of their conditions.

When Asian teams win on the sub-continent, where South Africa are always at a disadvantage for their lack of quality spinners, do the local crowds temper their celebrations because the opposition are like a fish out of water? From the television evidence I have seen, and the Asian journalists I have read, it would seem not. So why do we?