SA has grown used to second place
DEAR SIR — I was looking forward to the promised comment on rugby in Monday’s Thick End of the Wedge (October 14), and it did not disappoint. You could have read this as either a sinister attack on that holy shrine of ours — Springbok rugby — or as an analogous comment on the state of what we have become as a nation. I prefer to do the latter.
For all the change that we have been part of in this country — predominantly ring-fenced to the late 1990s — we have very little to show in terms of change for the better.
There are any number of ways to judge how good a coach or a leader is. There are those who have been gifted with extraordinary levels of resources and skills and yet they’re only able to turn that into average performances or at best inconsistent performances. Then there are those who have been given little to work with and yet achieve extraordinary levels of performance with what they have been given. In the third case, it’s about extraordinary resources leading to extraordinary results (perhaps read All Blacks). It is true for business, for politics and for sport.
In business, however, there is the ultimate measure of share price and the willingness of investors to keep throwing money at you. It has been said so often that investors follow individuals and we have some outstanding examples of this; Naspers and Aspen spring to mind.
In politics the only real measure is votes and whether the people of a country will allow you another term of office. It works well when you don’t suppress the will and free choice of the people through all sorts of controlling shenanigans. But ultimately the will of the people will be the real measure, as has no doubt been shown all over North Africa and the Middle East in recent times. The only other time when it fails is if people are none the wiser as to what is going on, and this is a relatively easy thing to produce through controlling free speech, free association and a free media.
In sport it is so much more difficult. It is the one area in which patience with blatantly poor decisions and performance seems to be tolerated beyond measure. I love talking to people whose team has lost one of the major football trophy finals in SA. There is more than an 80% chance that they will say: “Watch us next year.” And so too we have developed every possible excuse for our cricket team’s inconsistency in all forms of the game, and our rugby team’s inability to occupy the pinnacle of world rugby, despite the abundance of talent and depth we’re blessed with.
That little silver cloud nation to the east have found something that have elevated them above the rest of the also-rans, which appears to be a mystical, unfailing formula for success. But it is not. The simple truth is they just won’t tolerate losing or mediocre performance. Yes, they lose sometimes, but it appears that instead of self-indulgent back-slapping for coming second and attributing blame to all but themselves, they get going with rooting out the stupidity, ineptitude or ill-discipline that caused them to fail. They seem hell-bent on controlling their destiny.
It appears our nation has become accustomed to coming second, and beware the realist who’d dare take issue with that and rob us of our halfbaked joy. Every now and then something will happen (a medal here, a trophy there, a newly opened road, a new international appointment, a World Cup hosting, perhaps) that will make us feel like we’re a top-tier player again. It may be fleeting but it will sustain us infinitely — just as we keep alive all the possible explanations for why we can never escape the doldrums of second, third or 53rd.
Some players should be playing the full match. Others, I am afraid, should never have put on boots. Will some one listen, though?
Deon Crafford
Pretoria