After winning the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the South Africa Springboks parted ways with winning coach Jake White. Then in came Peter de Villers who was hired because the South African Rugby Union (SARU) wanted to see more racial diversity in the sport. Bok administrators at that time called this process “the transformation.”
When the Boks won the World Cup in Japan last year, they promoted their defence coach - Jacques Nienaber - to the Head Coach (HC) position. However, this time the new HC’s challenge is not about “change” but more about health and well being AKA the Corona Virus.
Pic courtesy of Springboks Facebook
Due to the country being hit hard by the pandemic, almost all domestic competitions were suspended for most of 2020. Many senior national team players have hardly played any Rugby and are not match fit. National team captain Siya Kolisi was quoted as saying to the media in South Africa saying, “We are in a good place with our talent, but we are a long way off in terms of fitness and match readiness from where we were at the 2019 World Cup.”
Last week, the world champions withdrew from the famous annual Rugby Championship competition - a tournament, which includes Rugby powerhouses Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. Springboks management said it is because “of concern over player welfare.”
According to my South African rugby friends, they feel it is the right decision. My close friend “Meatballs” shared with me and said, “We have only been playing for a month now while Australia and the All Blacks have played in their domestics competitions for much longer. Some of our players can get seriously injured.”
Pic courtesy of Springboks Facebook
In my opinion, the annual Rugby Championship is the sport’s best competition. Unfortunately, my favourite team will not be there but South Africa are still the World Champions, but champions who will be watching from a very long distance.
Ben Ibrahim is TV Presenter & Commentator, Sports & Media Consultant.
He is also the current General Manager of the Malaysia Valke Rugby club competing in the Global Rapid Rugby (GRR) competition.
You can contact him on his public Facebook page or his Instagram @benibrahim_
