Wynand taught me 3 + 3 = 6

As opening paragraphs to a book go, the first bit of The Great Gatsby, where the narrator says his father advised him against making a judgment without remembering that not everyone had the same start in life, ranks among the more memorable.

We don’t have the same experiences either, which is why to someone who can only recall booing at a rugby match once - when Naas Botha opted to kick for goal on the final whistle when his Northern Transvaal team were well ahead against Natal in Maritzburg in 1980 - the behaviour at Newlands this past weekend will never make sense.

It’s everyone’s right to support who they want to support, but spitting at and hurling abuse at the opposition, making rude gestures, threatening them with bodily harm, just doesn’t belong in sport. And when those actions are directed against the team that comes from the same place as you against a team that comes from a country many thousands of kilometres away and you have probably never been to…well, it just confounds all logic and the words that come to mind are “Get a life!”

But as I say, we have different upbringings and different experiences and maybe if I had been introduced to this world differently I would also understand what a thrill it is to pay money on a Saturday afternoon so I can go and spit at a fellow Capetonian and South African.

This though is not just directed at those people who live in Cape Town but want to live in New Zealand and be New Zealanders, but also to Stormers captain Schalk Burger and, for that matter, Bulls captain Victor Matfield. For an early experience as a rugby supporter, also funnily enough in 1980, is what directs my opinion of captains who turn down kickable penalties when there is still enough time left on the clock to win the game just by kicking penalties.

Matfield has done it on a few occasions – admittedly sometimes it has worked out for him! – the most memorable such occasion being in the last 10 minutes of his team’s Currie Cup semifinal against the Sharks in Durban last October. A month later he did something similar at the same stage of the Springbok loss to Scotland.

Burger did it when Western Province were trying to fight back against the Sharks in the Currie Cup final last year. WP had a long way to fight back in that match, but when time and time again Province turned down kickable penalties only to be thwarted by the Sharks’ excellent defence, you had to start wondering what scoreboard pressure might have been created had they kicked for goal.

The Stormers were just six points behind when Burger on three separate occasions chose to set up the lineout instead of kicking for goal against the Crusaders. The first time there were still 11 minutes to go. By establishing that they weren’t going for the three pointers, the Stormers sent the message to the Crusaders that they could infringe with impunity in their attempts to slow the ball down in those last minutes, and they did that.

But as I say, maybe I would have had a different view of it were it not for my memory of what the then Natal captain Wynand Claassen had to say after his team had won a match against Transvaal with a last gasp drop-goal from Pete Smith.

In the last 10 minutes Natal were as many points behind when they started one of the late comebacks that they were renowned for that year. With about eight to go, Claassen invoked the ire of the Kings Park crowd (but no-one spat at him!) when he asked Cliffie Brown to kick for goal instead of going for the line.

The kick was successful, a converted try followed (in those days a try was worth four points) and Natal were left one point behind Transvaal with just a minute or two to play. Instead of needing another try though, Natal just needed a kick, and Smith obliged off the last move of the game.

I was at school back then but remember Claassen explaining it in the newspaper: To him it was just logical and could be worked out by basic mathematics. He reasoned when he decided to kick the first penalty that his team would still need a try, but there was no good reason why that couldn’t come after the three pointer that would edge his team nearer and might make a difference in the end.

It’s a long time ago now, but maybe both the Bulls and the Stormers could profit if Claassen could find time to explain his logic to their respective skippers. The game may have changed in 31 years, but the mathematics hasn’t.