We’re relying on Boks for the hope the pandemic stole

I remember how seriously the Mail & Guardian took the Rugby World Cup coverage four years ago.

We started planning weeks ahead: checking out the teams, looking at key players and delving into the Springboks, whom we didn’t give much of a chance to win.

Luke Feltham, now the M&G’S opinions editor, was giving me tips on how to go about producing compelling stories for the RWC when he wasn’t writing them himself.

We were also wiping sweat and tears from our faces given the amount of work we had to do prior to publishing the articles.

It was truly an electric atmosphere.

It was also the first time I had managed to contact former Springboks such as Akona Ndungane and André Pretorius. We weren’t too far from a chat with Victor Matfield either.

The Boks took on New Zealand in their first match while I was in the Kruger National Park for the World Wildlife Summit. Before any speakers mentioned animals, a laptop was connected to a projector and the first thing we saw was our national team.

The Boks ended up losing that game, narrowly, leaving me in a room full of screaming conservationists — not for the first time, but for different reasons.

Everybody watching the matches saw coach Rassie Erasmus’s plan, and unified South Africans’ enthusiasm that was amplified over the next month.

Each Springbok game elicited excitement with a hint of nervousness, and each time the Springboks passed the test during what was a tough period for the country.

I was extremely proud to wear a Springbok jersey, along with other South Africans.

For me, the entire experience was not so much about our team winning the World Cup as it was about the fight to conquer every challenge with unity.

The Boks’ triumph at the 2019 Rugby World Cup crafted a path for the renewed hope of a nation in gloomy times, and South Africans embraced it.

When the Springboks returned from Japan, I was sent to the airport to get a sense of what South Africans were feeling. I ended up writing in that article that “the energy the public displayed at OR Tambo International Airport was enough to help Eskom out for a few days”.

I stand by that. In true South African fashion — and in a way that only South Africans can — the celebrations were beautiful.

And so was the rest of 2019. It felt hopeful. It felt cheerful. And although we knew that we had a lot of problems as South Africans, that victory ignited a feeling in our collective bellies that we were not completely hollowed out as a nation because of state capture.

In the months that followed, however, the pandemic set us back. Lives and livelihoods were lost, and mental health was tested.

Lockdowns stopped gatherings. It was necessary, but it affected our enthusiasm, made us lose interest in things we once loved and tied us up in cocoons of discomfort that, as in Stockholm syndrome, we were unwilling to leave.

I saw this when I was at the FNB Stadium a couple of months ago for Bafana Bafana’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against World Cup semi-finalists Morocco.

There were so many attractions for this particular game, but the public just did not give enough attention to it.

Tickets were sold for as little as R20, and yet there was still a sea of empty seats. Pre-covid, this type of match would have been packed to capacity.

Apart from social events, things have not improved for South Africans since then: rising interest rates, a cost-of-living crisis that cuts through the poor and the middle class, an energy crisis with no end in sight, and a fuel price so high that we are all looking around for smaller cars — which we can’t afford either.

And so here we are, at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, searching for more than ourselves as a nation. Seeking the enthusiasm and vibrancy that the pandemic stole from us.

This time, I am not chasing former Springboks for stories and I don’t plan on going to the airport when the Boks return. But I will be wearing the same Springbok jersey from 2019 for every game and screaming the national anthem at the top of my lungs.

All I ask for in return is renewed hope and enthusiasm. I pray that the Springboks can give me that. —