THE DAY THE MOTHER CITY BECAME DODGE CITY

“Let’s get out of Dodge City”.

Those were the words of my colleague Brenden Nel, who took the Bryce Lawrence refereeing freak show that knocked the Springboks out of the 2011 Rugby World Cup way too personally and was too emotional to spend any more time than was completely necessary at the scene of what we both viewed as a crime. Never mind that Wellington was for both of us by some distance New Zealand’s best city.

Brenden’s motivation to hit the road was probably that during the long drive to Auckland, which was punctuated by a night in Rotorua, the feel of the car and the road under his feet would somehow soothe the frustration.

It was that night in Rotorua that I first got acquainted with the concept of “Kiwi hot”. It was a time long before acid reflux limited my appetite for curry, or perhaps it was my appetite for spice that caused what came later, but after ordering a vindaloo, of course among the hottest Indian curries you can eat, and receiving what tasted like a stew, I complained to the restaurant manager. He said: “You should have told us you wanted it to be Indian hot, most people who come in here want Kiwi hot and if the curry has any spice in it, they complain.”

There might have been complaints that the Barbarians, coached by a New Zealander and with several of Robbie Deans’ countrymen in the team, were too Kiwi mild and way more similar to a butter chicken than a vindaloo or even a jalfrezi in their game against the Boks.

Yet while they produced a limp performance, you need to take into consideration that they were playing what, in Barbarians terms, at least at this time of the year, is Dodge City. Rassie readily acknowledged afterwards that they were the worst possible conditions for the Barbarians, but they appeared to feel committed to playing Barbarians rugby, and duly made the early mistakes that set them on the back foot and ended the game as a contest.

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE EASTERN CAPE

Apparently the Barbarians, or so I was told by a high-ranking SA Rugby official - in fact the highest you can get - at the Klipdrift sponsorship function that took place at Hamiltons during a monsoon a few days before the game, wanted it to be played in Cape Town. So they got what they asked for. They might not have chosen Cape Town as the venue if they’d noted the muddy fields at the last few international under-20 tournaments staged in the Western Cape at this time of the year.

Anyhoo, a Johannesburg colleague who grabbed lunch with me in Mouille Point before the game maintained it was colder on the highveld when he flew out than it was in Cape Town when he landed here (it’s the damp that does my head in, dear boy, the damp), so maybe there was nowhere that was perfect for the Barbarians in this country last week.

Although Durban, placed as it is in the sub-tropics, is usually as good a bet in the winter months for a Barbarians-style game as it would be a bad bet in the summer, humid months. Rugby should be a winter sport in KZN and a summer sport in the Cape. I think the preference for Cape Town is that the people in this city still go watch rugby no matter the conditions. Which they did.

As someone reared on bunny chow and who grew up watching the Banana Boys at Kings Park, it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that I am really looking forward to getting out of Dodge City on Sunday when I drive to Gqeberha for the next Italy game. Hopefully the weather will play along. That doesn’t always happen at this time of the year in what used to be known as PE.

GO EASY ON ROBBIE

Social media isn’t my thing, but Brenden tells me Robbie Deans was taking hits after the game for being a poor international coach. For goodness sake, you can’t judge a coach on a Barbarians game, where you get a team together just a couple of days before kick-off and where the emphasis is on playing entertaining rugby. And let’s not forget that the last time Deans coached the Barbarians against the Boks, on a dry afternoon in London in 2016, his team managed a draw in a game where they were the better team.

Deans may have been better off had he spoken to Nick Mallett at the start of the week. Nick told Brenden and I that when he coached the BaaBaas he still set up to win the game. Which, of course, Nick would. His competitive instinct wouldn’t even allow him to countenance losing in the game of charades some of us rugby journos were part of during a Bok training camp in Plettenberg Bay in 2000.

But the point remains - judging a coach on what he does with the Barbarians, when the week is spent socialising and the weather dictates that training doesn’t extend to much more than a few walk-throughs, is idiotic.

BRANNAS SHOULD BECOME ‘KLIPPIES’

It was Brannas time when Klipdrift joined SA Rugby officials and some of us rugby media types in celebrating the renewal of their successful partnership at Hamiltons Rugby Club. The man nicknamed Brannas for his predilection for brandy and coke, Deon Fourie, was an apt attendee, and one of three injured Boks present. The others were Frans Malherbe and Lukhanyo Am.

Seeing as the Boks are sponsored by Klipdrift, the suggestion from the MC was a good one - he should henceforth be known as ‘Klippies’. Anyway, Fourie (let’s call him that) agreed with me that while he’d love to be back on the field, and will be next season as he’s due to start running again soon, the Barbarians game might be a good one to miss. The rain was drumming down when we were talking, turning the main Hamiltons field into what looked like a paddy field.

BARBARIANS BROTHERHOOD IS UNIQUE

Driving past the beachfront on the way home from Hamiltons during a very rare Cape Town electric storm, the sea was properly on its head, as the saying goes, and probably explains why I have struggled to find any fresh fish this week (galjoen feed after a storm but thankfully, as their numbers have dwindled, aren’t fished commercially).

The day after the Klipdrift function, I found myself at the Barbarians' team hotel in Camps Bay looking at a sea that was brown mush. I never imagined I would ever say I’d feel sorry for people staying at The Bay Hotel, which in the summer months is paradise, but this time I almost did. Almost. Although that weather would have inspired doses of cabin fever anywhere.

So, given that the players were forced by the elements to live on top of each other, it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall watching them get along with each other. Particularly the interactions between Peter O’Mahony and Sam Cane. The one having memorably, as we regularly get reminded by the UK and Irish media, been told he was nothing but a “sxxx Richie McCaw” during the 2017 Lions series against the All Blacks.

The question sat like an elephant in the room when Cane went in front of the media, but someone had to ask it. So right at the end of the conference, when it was clear no-one else was going to, I did. Hanyani Shimange asked me afterwards why I didn’t just ask the question directly, as in “How have you got on with Peter this week?” But I fudged it a bit, although admitting in the question that “You know what I am referring to”.

Cane’s answer was excellent. He was clearly expecting the question. And some camp insiders told me afterwards it wasn’t a word of a lie either. Although they were ribbed by teammates every time they sat together, two of rugby’s fiercest rivals got on like rugby players do when they are off the field and sampling the renowned brotherhood of the sport - really well.

Their coach asked the question - in what other sport at professional level is there a concept like the Barbarians, where players who play against each other for years come together in one team and become teammates? Well, with the proliferation of IPL-type leagues around the world, the cricketers might be getting used to doing that, but I do get Deans’ point. There’s nothing quite like the brotherhood promoted by the Barbarians.

THAT 2016 ITALY GAME

So with the rain falling outside, the Proteas/Zimbabwe cricket test finished a day early, and the British and Irish Lions game against the Reds and the Edgbaston test between England and India due to start at the same time later in the day, I found myself watching the 2016 Bok/Italy game. The one the Boks lost in Florence.

I covered that tour, but as I was paying for part of the trip out of my own pocket, I elected not to do the Italy leg and instead stayed on in England and covered the buildup remotely. I planned my arrival in Cardiff, the venue for the last game of that tour, to coincide with the Bok arrival in Wales, thinking that as it should be an easy Bok win, I wouldn’t be missing much from a rugby perspective.

I was wrong. I watched the game in a pub in Newquay on the Cornish coast, one of those big sports bars where there were several different channels. From memory, the friend I was with was the only other person watching the Italy game, and of course I was the only nutter in the pub with a laptop computer. Even though I wasn’t there, the game still had to be covered.

Shew, what a misjudgement. I did need to be there. That game was nearly the end of Allister Coetzee, who pitched up in Cardiff on the Monday looking like a dead man walking. And he duly changed his team, coming up with a much less experienced and more youthful combination for the game at the Principality Stadium. And the Boks got beaten by 20 points there, after which I heard the most depressing conversations among Wales fans while queuing for the train back to London. The consensus was that it wasn’t something for the Wales team to get excited about as the Boks were rubbish.

So it was interesting these years later to watch the Florence game again with the perspective of what has happened subsequently. It is quite shocking how many players who are now double World Cup winners played in that loss to Italy. Willie le Roux was at fullback, Damian de Allende was at centre, Faf de Klerk came on at scrumhalf, Pieter-Steph du Toit was there, so were Bongi Mbonambi, Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira, Steven Kitshoff, Franco Mostert, Lood de Jager and others…

If you rolled forward a few months, to the 57-0 shocker at the hands of the All Blacks in Albany, you could add the likes of Eben Etzebeth and Malcolm Marx to that list. The turnaround from there to winning the World Cup in 2019, and what has happened subsequently, has been remarkable.

But then, when you think of it, there are many examples underlining that old saying that if a week is a long time in rugby, a year can be a lifetime. For example, the Boks lost 49-0 to Australia in Brisbane in 2006. In 2007 they won the World Cup - and under the same coach. With Coetzee as Jake White’s assistant coach.

THE BOK CENTRES AND AUXILIARY FLANKERS

Mention of Damian de Allende triggered one of my take-outs from the Bok/Barbarians game. The centres. When you are at a game and not watching on television, you can train your attention on one particular aspect of a team’s play, and I watched the midfield. This is an age when it is normal for centres to operate as auxiliary flankers, but the amount of work De Allende and Jesse Kriel get through, their all-round work-rate, is phenomenal and an unheralded yet big part of the Boks' success.

PRETORIUS AND BREVIS LIT UP THE PRE-MATCH LUNCH

The British and Irish Lions were playing at the same time, but it was hard not to switch channels before heading out for lunch to the cricket that was broadcast from the Queens Ground in Bulawayo. It was a bit concerning when the Proteas were 28 for three early on that first day, and later around 50 for four when Wiaan Mulder was run out, but there were two young players who came to the rescue.

After watching 19-year-old Luand-hre Pretorius in the BetwaySA20, where he excelled, and noting that he also made a century on his first-class debut, it was not surprising that the strongly built left-hander quickly wrested the initiative into South Africa’s favour. I watched him complete his century and then his 150 while eating a paella at La Splendida, a short drive from the DHL Stadium.

Some might say it is just Zimbabwe, and Pretorius was lucky there was no DRS as it looked like he might have nicked it early in his innings, but Pretorius and Dewald Brevis, who made a debut 50 at better than a run a ball, couldn’t have asked for a better start to their careers in the test format. I just hope they continue to play test cricket, and don’t get lured early into becoming white-ball specialists, for they will add huge depth and substance to the South African middle order in years to come.

Speaking of which, and this won’t surprise any who remember my earlier posts in this column on the subject, Mulder again confirmed he is the real deal as a batting allrounder with his second-innings 147, caught on the boundary, and his first-innings wickets.

SOMETHING TO INSPIRE SCHOOLBOY RUGBY PLAYERS

Junior Springbok coach Kevin Foote spoke after his team’s 73-17 win over the Junior Wallabies, a result that was scarcely believable to those of us who watched the under-20 team lose to the Aussies in the Rugby Championship game in Gqeberha a few months ago, about how inspirational the Boks have been to his young team.

Hopefully that inspiration will extend into the next game against a strong England team, but regardless of what happens next, it is a good point - the Bok successes since 2019 must automatically have a ripple effect and of course it will extend to school level.

The schools players have clearly identifiable heroes who rule the rugby world, but how do you get from being a hero at school level to becoming one at international level? As it turns out, the publisher, Don Nelson, has sent me a series of little booklets that he has produced focusing on this very subject.

“Ultimate Springbok Heroes - From School to Test Rugby” features separate takes on the rise of a clutch of top Boks, with Pieter-Steph du Toit, Cheslin Kolbe, Siya Kolisi, Handre Pollard, Eben Etzebeth and Faf de Klerk being the cross-section of players in different positions that have been featured.

They are aimed at the younger market, but I found the little booklets interesting as a refresher, as an easy-to-read reminder of the lives of those star players, so they could appeal to older readers too. They are available in bookshops and can be purchased as a set or as separate booklets, depending on the retailer.