Sarfu policy helped Bok strongman realise his potential

Many years ago I was watching an under-14 level school game where I overheard a conversation between two teachers.

One of them commented favourably on the potential of what appeared to be a particularly promising, well-built fullback. But the other, who just happened to be the big guy's coach at the time, surprised me with the absolute certainty with which he responded.

"He will not progress much beyond the junior levels of the game. The other players will catch up with him physically and he will never be able to take the knocks that you have to take when you get older. He just doesn't have the guts or the stomach for it," said the teacher, who at the time was a well-known first-league club rugby player in Durban.

It was not the first or last time I heard such a comment about a player at junior level. Sometimes the predictions hit the mark, sometimes they don't.

While the coach in question was right about the player under discussion, who was not even a regular first team player in his final year at school, I know people who said the same thing about Hugh Reece-Edwards when he was at school.

When I first saw Etienne Fynn play for Natal under-21 in the early part of the 1990s, I had little doubt he belonged to the former group. He just seemed to be one of those players who relied on his size. Although it was clear he had talent, he appeared lazy, less than committed and everything was made too easy for him.

It was a belief shared by many people involved in Natal rugby at the time. Perhaps that is why Fynn, in the days before Sarfu adopted their current aggressive transformation policy, never really seemed to be going anywhere.

Indeed, for a while he seemed to disappear. Until he made a sudden reappearance as part of the Sharks Super 12 squad in the 1999 season, I thought he had gone into early retirement. After watching some of his early Super 12 games, I almost wished that he had.

I may have been wrong, but he appeared to owe his place in those days to the fact that the then Sharks coach Ian McIntosh was under pressure to choose black players. And the way Fynn was utilised in those days, with most of his appearances coming off the bench, suggested he was there to add colour to the team.

Two years later, such a thought would be considered heresy. Fynn, now 28 and heading towards the time of life when players in his position reach their peak, is anything but a token selection.

Just ask Rudolf Straeuli. After I praised the Sharks coach earlier in the year for selecting three black players, he saw fit to inform me that none of his selections had been guided by political considerations. He really believed all three were worth their places on merit, and that included Fynn.

The former Kearsney College schoolboy has more than vindicated his coach's faith. His outstanding performance in the recent Super 12 final was not the first time this past season that he impressed in a really big game.

You have to wrack your brains in trying to recall when last he took a step backwards in a set-scrum, while his all-round ball skills and support play has improved beyond recognition.

Many would say that he has just realised the potential he displayed as a schoolboy. But here is one worth mulling over: Would he have made it had he been a white player?

Given his reputation for lacking commitment (something he claims was misinterpreted) in his youth, I seriously doubt that he would have.

My view is that the coaches would have overlooked him in favour of players more outwardly serious about the game.

Former Springbok centre Brendan Venter, in endorsing the Sarfu transformation policy last year, made the enlightening point that players who are fast-tracked tend to benefit from the skills of those around them. In other words, rubbing shoulders with the big names and training with them on a daily basis helps accelerate their development, which is of course the premise that the entire quota system is built around.

The key, according to Venter, was for the coaches to have patience. Throwing a player in at the deep end meant you had to allow him time to learn to swim.

Fynn was never fast tracked. It could be argued that as a provincial schools representative he has always been part of the elite band of players destined to make it big in the end.

But the Sarfu quota system undeniably helped see to it that he was brought back into the frame and persevered with when he might otherwise have been discarded and forgotten.

It forced the coaches to be more patient than they might otherwise have been. Fynn is on the verge of big things in the coming months. He is just a few short steps away from winning a test cap that he would deserve on merit.

When he does, mark Etienne Fynn's name down as another example of the success of a system which although initially unpopular has helped ensure that players of true ability do not escape the net.

It should not escape critics of the quota system that South Africa's Player of the Year for 2000, Breyton Paulse, may never have survived the petty prejudices still prevalent in rugby were it not for the aggressive line adopted towards transformation by his current employers.

My money says that a few years from now I may well be writing the same thing of Lawrence Sephaka.