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13/03/2008 09:10
JJ Harmse
The latest contract saga between SA Rugby and Peter de Villiers is becoming boring. Both parties are bringing the game into disrepute with their claims and counter claims and believe me, there will be no winner in this, only losers.
Is De Villiers greedy and is his agent pushing for more and more commission? Is SA Rugby's human resource officer up to scratch or do they even have one? It does not seem like it, as this absurd situation regarding contractual conditions has been dragging on for months.
I believe Rian Oberholzer is trying to pull a race card here as an easy way to get publicity and put SA Rugby under pressure. The organisation only has them to blame though, because this issue has been dragging on for way too long. De Villiers should have been offered the job, given a week or so to decide if he was prepared to do it on the conditions provided and then accepted it or not. Only then, SA Rugby should have made the announcement.
Wake up
The reality is than De Villiers and his employer already have a strained relationship and all of that because of bad human resource management and/or bad advice.
South African rugby deserves better. Springbok rugby deserves better and the rugby public deserves better. Come on people, wake up and smell the roses!
Not that too many rugby supporters care now. With most of our Super 14 teams performing well last weekend, supporters are now proudly coming out of the closet again.
A Stormers-supporting friend of mine was quick to SMS me after the Reds game, suggesting that they have turned the corner. I certainly hope so.
If the Sharks are to host a semi again and the Bulls to make the top four, they need the Stormers, Lions and Cheetahs to punch above their weight and take points away from the likes of the Chiefs, Hurricanes, Force and Waratahs.
Alternative
The Bulls seem to have found some missing link with the likes of Bakkies Botha, Bryan Habana and Akona Ndungane fit again and Pierre Spies on his way to the starting XV in the next two weeks.
The good showing by Morne Steyn in the No 12 jersey also provided us with an alternative in the way we want to play at national level. I don't need to remind the regular readers of this column that I have punted Steyn for the inside centre role at national level before, especially as a 'second-five' New Zealand-style.
Peter Grant is another who could fill that role and is a Springbok already. Add Meyer Bosman to that role and it is clear that Frans Steyn and Jean de Villiers will have their work cut out to stay the incumbents of the No 12 jersey in the Bok set-up.
No surprise
No one knows whom De Villiers has in mind in that position but the coach himself.
He had Brad Barritt in that inside position in both his Under-21 World Cup team as well as his Emerging Boks team, so the Sharks player could well have the inside lane. His selection will not be a surprise either as Barritt has been knocking on the selection door for a while now.
His Sharks team are also front-runners and that will help his chances. The Sharks needed some luck and an inspirational performance from Keegan Daniel against the Blues last weekend, but remain among the favourites to top the log again.
Not so for the poor Cheetahs.
I cannot believe that one team can have so much bad luck in the opening month of the competition. Yes, they have Noel Oelschig to blame for that silly defeat against the Lions and the Blues destroyed them, but how unlucky were they against the Force and Chiefs? In both instances, their fate was determined by shocking refereeing decisions and even worse TMO calls.
Robbed
For some reason the standard of TMO calls are worse than ever. There have been so many dodgy calls; one can almost make a full-length movie with examples. In addition, even after all the protocol changes between TMO and referee we still have a loophole in how the question is asked by the latter.
"Give me a reason why I should not award the try" should have a number of answers and if one is that "I could not see the bal being grounded", then no try should be awarded! However, for the poor Cheetahs, the opposite rang true. They were robbed and we have the video evidence to prove it.
Pity the same evidence was used to rob them in the first place!
Clearly, the respective referee bosses in Sanzar need to urgently sort out this mess as there has been controversy in almost every match.
Too many matches so far have been determined by poor handling of officials. There is enough confusion with the introduction of the ELVs already; the additional burden of poor refereeing is just too much to bear.
And as per World Cup experiences, we also have citing officers who instead of a fixed set of rules, seem so far apart on an opinion of what a spear tackle is as De Villiers and SA Rugby are from signing their agreement!
Read JJ every Sunday in Rapport.
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