SA rugby will reap benefits of greater emphasis on sevens

The secret of great British comedy, or so say the likes of Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese, is in the timing. The same can be said for the art of getting a South African sports fan to gloat.

On it's own as an achievement, winning a three team limited overs cricket tournament means little. But win it in Australia while keeping the home team out of the best of three final, and it suddenly becomes the equivalent of winning a World Cup.

Likewise with the sevens rugby. Had the triumph of Chester Williams' team come in Punte de Este, Mar del Plata, Melrose or even Dubai or Hong Kong, it would not have been reason to do more than doff our caps in salute.

After all, these sevens tournaments happen fairly regularly. It stands to reason that if your team is half decent it has to win sometime.

But winning the tournament which is hosted on New Zealand soil is different, particularly when the Kiwis are amongst the teams that the Sevens Boks vanquished en route to their achievement.

Timing is crucial, and this time it could not have been more spot-on. Feel good stories are so rare in South African rugby these days.

And this is a feel good story to rank with the best. For it was not long ago that sevens was regarded as an unwanted aside to the issues that really mattered in our rugby.

On my one visit to the Hong Kong tournament in 1995, I was stunned at how little preparation and pre-planning went into the Springbok effort.

The team was poorly selected and the then coach, Dawie Snyman, did not boast the same level of sevens experience as some of the other South African coaches.

The top officials seemed not to grasp the fact that sevens was a specialist code which to some extent demanded coaches with specialised knowledge.

There again, they never really appeared to care either. It was the 15-man union game that mattered.

This is the first time that the national sevens team has been given a high-profile coach and Williams has wasted little time in showing the sense of increasing the priority accorded to the abbreviated game.

The Bok win in Wellington may have come as a shock to many, but those who have followed the sevens side closely realised some time ago that it was just a matter of time before they would break the ice.

Let's hope that Williams is right when he says that this victory will be a watershed for both his team and the code in this country.

For a glance at the sevens histories in the CVs of several of the big stars strutting their stuff in the world game should underline the importance of sevens as a development vehicle.

Jonah Lomu first hit the rugby firmament at the 1994 Hong Kong event; in 1995 he hinted at the devastation he was to cause in the conventional World Cup later that same year with another command performance.

The following year it was Christian Cullen's turn. And so it goes on...It is easy to see how exposure to sevens increases individual skills levels.

For this reason it is perhaps regrettable that the many potential Springbok flyhalves and first centres who have been tried and discarded at various levels over the years have not been exposed to sevens. If they had, they might have been better rounded players.

It might well be instructive to look back in the years, even the months ahead, to see where the players who were part of the Bok achievement in Wellington end up. There are of course players who are specialist sevens players and remain specialist sevens players all their lives.

But in Brent Russell and Fabian Juries we have two young players who have already caught the eye in the conventional code. Perhaps the events of the past few days will have accelerated their maturation process. If they get a chance to play Vodacom Cup this season, watch them go.

That in the end is what it is all about and is part of the reason why the plight of South African rugby may not be as depressing as many make out.

The Springboks have been down for a while, but the steady stream of talented young players coming through has provided evidence that the nurseries are serving their purpose.

When South African rugby regains its former glory it will be because it has successfully become the sum of its parts. I fancy sevens may be a small but significant part of that sum.