Hey sport - don't mess with national pride

2011-10-17 07:25

Chris Moerdyk 

I don't know about you but when South Africn rugby, cricket or soccer teams lose international matches through stupidity, it spoils my day. Actually it spoils more than just a day. Weeks maybe. Even months.

When we are humiliated as we were when our soccer bosses and national team mistakenly believed we had actually won a victory by playing for a draw or when our rugby coach purposely puts up a second rate test team for the tri-nations rugby, that's when I get angry.

I have no problem losing fairly and squarely to a better team but it irks when we lose through stupidity.

Only a week ago our Sports Minister, commenting on the rugby,  said something about our rugby bosses now having four years to start planning a strategy for the next world cup.

I have a huge problem with suggestions that everything a rugby coach does must be aimed at winning the world cup. There same applies to cricket and soccer.

That is just playing silly games with our national pride.

Yes, we all understood that our second string Springbok rugby team had no chance against the Wallabies and the All Blacks full strength sides in this year's tri-nations. Yes, we were all assured that it was a great strategy to rest our top players so that they could be ready for the world cup.  But it didn't damn-well work did it?

All that happened was that we had to suffer the humiliation being beaten into stone last place in the tri-nations. Humiliation at seeing our Springboks being thoroughly whacked in Australia and New Zealand.

I really don't believe our sports bodies and coaches realise the extent to which a humiliating defeat affects the pride of a nation.

As far as I am concerned I think this last rugby world cup has shown us that the only way one can build a great team is to have them play as a team as often as possible. And that it does not pay to rest to plan for humiliating defeats just to be in a good position to content a world cup.

As I far as I am concerned every single test match that involves South Africans should be treated as a world cup final and be made up of our best players.

In my opinion, as a fan, whether I spend weeks on cloud nine or in the depths of despair depends entirely on the result of the last test match. Not knowing that we are world champions for four years. Not how well we have done in the past 100 years.

South Africans take their sport seriously. Losing needlessly has an enormous impact on our national pride. Losing stupidly has an even bigger impact on our national pride.

It shouldn't - but it does. Sport should just be about playing games. But it isn't - it's become a big business with big payrolls and is so hyped up by the sports administrators and the media that it creates huge expectations among millions of ordinary South Africans.

Just look how the success in the 1995 rugby world cup impacted so positively on millions of South Africans.  Well, a humiliating defeat has exactly the opposite effect.

I am really hoping that whoever becomes our next rugby coach will appreciate the enormity of his responsibility toward our national pride and commits himself to treating every single test match we play as a world cup final.

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