Only the truth can set SA rugby straight

Two years ago an All Black training session in Somerset West drew so many people that it was almost impossible for travelling journalists to get parking within a reasonable distance of the ground.

Most of the people there were not just present because they wanted to see another team train. They were there because they considered the All Blacks their team.

They had started supporting them during the Apartheid years and, in the face of endless controversy and allegations of racism, they had no reason to switch allegiance to the team that represents the country in which they live.

The Springbok win in the 1995 World Cup was hailed as a great nation-building exercise, but even that has been soured just a little by the subsequent revelations in Chester Williams' book.

In the past few days there have been letter writers and columnists in the various newspapers who have outlined their reasons for supporting the All Blacks rather than the Boks.

Sivuylie Mangxamba, writing in The Cape Argus, says much of it is based on a perception that black and coloured players who make it to the top are dismissed as "quota-fillers".

Why this is so is easy to ascertain. Even the provincial teams representing regions where there is a large reservoir of black talent somehow barely manage to meet the quota requirements.

Mangxamba argues that those black people who crossed to the Boks (he was not one of them) because of Nelson Mandela's public support for the team in 1995 feel betrayed by the revelations in the Williams book and by some of the other incidents since then.

Incidents such as the ambiguous response by the team leadership in 1996 to manager Morné du Plessis' call for white Bok fans to stop waving the old flag, which is seen as a symbol of oppression by so many.

Then, as Mangxamba reminds us, came Louis Luyt's legal action against Madiba and the André Markgraaff race tape scandal.

Rugby has tried to move on from all of these things but it has battled to do so. And make no mistake, I feel for the people at the top. There are administrators who work tirelessly to redress the imbalances of the past, to change the perceptions that exist.

Full marks to those people for ensuring that Mark Keohane’s allegations are being taken seriously and that the matter is being investigated.

There will inevitably be people who will come out and try and discredit Keohane once the investigation is under way, but you have to ask yourself why a person would throw away over R50 000 a month and a possible R300 000 World Cup bonus if he is not 100 percent sure that his allegations hold water.

I have been made aware of some of the allegations - just the tip of the iceberg, I am told - and if founded on fact they alone are enough to bring the Springbok careers of a few people to an end.

But there is a question that has to be asked - if SA Rugby MD Rian Oberholzer and his right-hand men knew of these facts last week, why was the initial investigation allowed to be so completely inadequate?

And now that the allegations have been made and they have seen the Keohane dossier, why have the board of SA Rugby not called in some of the role players mentioned for immediate questioning?

We hear that the latest investigation must not disrupt the Springbok World Cup preparations, but if the allegations are true then it is far more important that the situation is redressed than that the Boks do well at the World Cup.

The people who are wondering whether their blood should be green or whether their heart should instead pump something with a silver fern on it want to know that the players and management they support are above board and are decent people.

I know there are some officials who want the matter to be delayed until after the World Cup. That is not good enough, for if there is dirty laundry pulled out afterwards on players that were supported at the World Cup, the supporters would be right to feel they had been sold out.

In 1995 Bok supporters rallied around the "One Team, One Nation" slogan, but if the Boks go to Australia under a cloud, what will it be this time? I can already see the banner in my mind: "Divided Team, Divided Nation".

The investigation must lead to full disclosure by SA Rugby officials and immediate action. What happened last week, when the initial investigation took on the appearance of a damage limitation exercise that backfired horribly when the media took up the cudgels against Rian Oberholzer, cannot be repeated.

The appointment of Julian Smith, a Stellenbosch academic who recently was at the heart of an investigation into racism in a university residence, to the investigative team suggests there will be no whitewash this time.

That is a good thing because this is not something that can be wished away. If it appears that the allegations have not been taken seriously enough, or pressure has been brought to bear on key witnesses not to co-operate, Keohane will surely tell his story more publicly than he has now - and it is unlikely to make pretty reading.