Take race issue out of sport

I am weighing in, in the debacle of flames flaring up around the utterances of the current rugby Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi.

Much has been said supporting and defending, and there are misunderstandings.

I want to come from a completely different perspective and view from all who have dived in, supposing that the quota thing should only apply to black boys from the townships or the so-called previously disadvantaged.

(But listening to Kolisi, for all intents and purposes they still are and they definitely don’t eat six meals a day.)

It is supposed that these players must aim to be like their white counterparts, who it would appear are sitting pretty at the top of the rugby heap as benchmarks.

No need for them to worry about being drafted in because of their complexions, like “to the manor born” they deserve, with no sweat, only to sweat on the field of play.

I want to say categorically that apartheid was a quota system and the ghost of Nelson Mandela cannot rule here.

As a keen rugby follower and from a rich background of the sport in the black townships of Port Elizabeth, when you watch these supposedly rugby gods, they still play with the brute strength, archaic boring rugby that lacks imagination and creativity.

They remind me of white boxers like Kallie Knoetze and his contemporaries who if they don’t knock you out in the earlier rounds, if not the first round, had no idea on how to proceed.

These Boks play a 45minute rugby game (no wonder the game of two sides is often bandied about when it applies to the Springbok side).

The real benchmark titans of rugby, the All Blacks, just bide their time playing a full 90-minute game and trounce them.

How many SA so-called Super Rugby franchises have been excluded from that demanding league? All are full of white players who are now playing in the other league with northern hemisphere clubs and are struggling?

Rugby, like in all sports in SA, need to be deracialised.

All need be given a chance, if needs be, to be tested to make it.

There are enough clubs and provincial teams to put all these players through.

Pat Kondile New Brighton, Port Elizabeth