SA ON THE PATH TO CLAIM RUGBY CROWN

READING a column by Mark Reason, NZ rugby writer, on the challenges facing South African rugby and its transformation agenda, made me think of that old mythical uncle I met years ago.

He sat on his stoep, smoked his pipe, and held audience with whoever thought it prudent to seek his wisdom. He had the most accurately defined conceptual understanding of non-racialism, he had an incredible world view of the global village, could engage in a discourse on solving the social and economic woes of the world, and knew how to dismantle apartheid. He was the perfect embodiment of the classic armchair critic. But he sat, ruminating, while apartheid was ravaging his people.

Mark Reason, sitting afar in the land of the long cloud, presents a perfect clone of the mythical uncle. He has all the answers as to how we can win RWC 2019, as long as we play by the rules he dictates from his keyboard afar. His deeply laced, almost racist, rhetoric seeks to prescribe to us – pick an all-white team, it’s your only hope of success, because it’s their systems that produce the best rugby players.

Stay sitting wherever you are Mr Reason, and type away on your keyboard. After all, it’s your job. We, in South Africa, will transform our country in our own way and in our own time, and we’ll do it while playing winning rugby, as we proved over the past three Springbok vs All Black contests, even if we lost two out of three, very narrowly.

But maybe Mr Reason has noted the potential of our boys, the Damien Allendes, the Embrose Papiers, the Damien Willemses, the Aphiwe Dyantis and the Siya Kolisis. And he is reasoning, if you’ll forgive the pun – if these boys are mature men in a few years time, then the dominance of NZ rugby will be at an end. GEORGE HECTOR Heathfield