There’s the right way, and the Luke Watson way
There are ways of asking questions at sports media conferences when there is a stink in the air. Start off gentle, build up and then come in from the side with a sliding tackle of an inquiry that will drag out. Or, go in with a two-footed tackle, taking man and ball in one mighty bang.
Perhaps the finest example of the latter method was performed by sports writer Ken Borland in 2007 in a room at the Springbok hotel in Sandton. Luke Watson was going to make his crowbarred debut for the Boks and had been put up for a pregame interview.
Borland pulled out a copy of SA Sports Illustrated from 2004 in which Watson had given an interview. “Luke, in 2006 you said: ‘I would love to play for the Springboks, but I don’t want to
… compromise my beliefs and integrity and honour. I believe Jake has lost the integrity, honour and pride the Boks should be about’.”“What has changed?” asked Borland
Watson was taken aback and got a little snarky.
“First and foremost, the matter at hand is the Samoa Test, but to entertain you I’ll answer your question. For myself personally, I still stand on that. At no stage will I compromise the beliefs and values that I have been brought up with. I think to a certain extent that we are enjoying those values in our democracy today,” Watson said.
“As everyone is fully aware, there has been a certain controversy about me being in the side. But I am very, very glad to be donning the Springbok jersey, and looking forward to running out in the No 6 green and gold”.
The rest of the interview was mild. Adversities included getting your dad to call some people to tell some other people to get you into the team that a coach doesn’t want you to be part of.
And then there are ways you should never ask questions. Such as when Heyneke Meyer, then the Bok coach, was asked in 2011 if Luke Watson was a contender to be Springbok captain. The question was asked by a writer working for Highbury Monarch, publisher of SA Rugby magazine, who had also just gone into player management with one Luke Watson as their key signing.
Watson had also featured on the cover of the magazine with the story proclaimed as “Return of the King”.
It was obvious and ugly, and did the magazine and the writer no favours. Just a few years before, the same company had published John Smit’s autobiography, Captain in the
Cauldron, in which Watson features in several unflattering moments. Smit had originally gone to bat for Watson when he was at the Sharks, calling White, the team’s coach, when Watson was not included in the SA Under-21 team.
“Jake said: ‘John, believe me, I have a better open-side flank than Luke. Remember this name: Schalk Burger’,” recalled Smit before asking ... “Who the hell is Schalk Burger?”
Watson left for Western Province after his second year at the Sharks when his “superior attitude” began to rub players and coaching staff up the wrong way. Watson wrote a newspaper column saying he wanted to go to Cape Town to play for a team that were going to win trophies and help him become a Springbok. Smit kept that 2006 article, in which his captaincy also came in for some stick, with the Boks having apparently lost their “pride and passion” under him.
In 2008, when Watson said he wanted to vomit on the jersey, he wondered why he had wanted to play for the Boks so badly.
At his capping ceremony, Waylon Murray, who made his debut in the same Test against Samoa in 2007, had 16 family and friends in the room with him to celebrate the moment. Watson went in alone as his father sat in the hotel foyer drinking coffee with Mike Stofile. All that effort to become a Springbok, and no sense of celebration.
Just as there are ways of asking questions in sport, so, too, there are ways of becoming a Springbok. Most are through talent and dedication and some luck, and then there is the Luke Watson way.