Time to think before talking

The outcry over the refereeing in the Wellington test seems like a not so subtle attempt to deflect attention away from the reality that the Springboks have been overtaken by the All Blacks, but much of the complaining is justified.

There is no need to list the inconsistencies here, for Alain Rolland’s mistakes have been all over the media ever since the final whistle sounded on the 31-17 All Black victory. I am also in complete agreement with the New Zealand writer who questioned the yellow card handed to Danie Rossouw on the basis of what it did to the game.

The most sensible words to come out of the Bok camp this week have predictably come from John Smit, and he is 100% on the money when he says that losing a player from the tight five in the first 10 minutes is crippling as that is when the two sides are trying to establish physical ascendancy.

It is difficult to change momentum once it is established, and the Boks found themselves in a similar position to the one that they found themselves in when Schalk Burger was removed from play for the initial 10 minutes of last year’s second test against the British and Irish Lions.

But mention of the Burger incident only serves to remind us that the Boks have been in this situation too often recently and that it is starting to become a malaise. It might serve the Bok purpose far more if instead of bleating in an unedifying fashion about external factors they took a long, hard look inwardly.

I had a lot more sympathy last week for Bakkies Botha when he was suspended than most South Africans did. To me Botha is the victim of the culture that has been allowed to manifest itself over the past few years and which has contributed to a far greater incidence of major disciplinary infractions under the current regime than was the case when Jake White was coaching.

It would require a good few fingers to tally up the number of occasions last year where Botha would sit in front of a press conference and laugh about his role as the enforcer. The media, who report on what is said, put the message out into the public domain.

When Botha wasn’t the man sitting in front of the press conference it would often be one of the men closest to him on the field that would be asked the question. Again the message that was put out seemed a pretty ambiguous one: You didn’t have to read too far behind the lines to get the idea that “Bakkies is there to protect us by giving the opposition a klap!” It started to bore me, but it also concerned me, for I could see it coming back to bite the Boks.

The idiotic “Justice 4 Bakkies” armband protest in the third test of the Lions series, when Botha was unfairly banned in most of our books, also did not help. It just made Botha an even more obvious person for referees to watch for as it made him a more contentious issue and focus in the rugby world than perhaps he needed to be.

Most importantly, the unqualified support he received from his coach and the team leaders would have done nothing to suggest maybe he should put a check on his robustness.

There were a lot of losers in the unregulated building of the “Bakkies is our enforcer who can do anything” legend last year, and Botha was one of them. He told me in an interview about the frustration of looking up at the big screen and seeing himself being focused on whenever there was foul play and even when he was nowhere near the incident when it took place. So it wasn't just referees who were watching him.

The point is that the wrong message is being sent out through not enough care about what is being said. Peter de Villiers’s coaching credentials will always be a subject of debate, and I don’t wish to go there now, but what is beyond any question is that he makes life a lot more difficult for his team with some of his utterances.

The “ballerina” comment when he should have been condemning foul play after the Burger eye-gouging incident last year was a case in point. He was trying to win his players over when he did that, but like the father of a household who is too soft on ethics and turns a blind eye when children transgress, it came across that he was condoning the behaviour that is now becoming a malaise in the Bok team.

What really took the cake for me was after the All Black game when he hinted that the confusion over breakdown interpretations meant he would have to coach his team to cheat. So if the referee for the next test blows the Boks off the park for breakdown infringements, De Villiers will have no leg to stand on if the referee responds to criticism by saying “Mate, I read that you were going to coach your team to cheat, so obviously that was what I watched out for.”

The way Schalk Burger has cleaned up his act under Allister Coetzee is an example of what can be gained from choosing words wisely and in a calm manner and by putting the right message out to the public.