Set for some Specmagic sleight of hand

ROSKO Specman knows how to spot a gap, beat a defender, and toe it to the tryline … he also knows how to make an entrance.

“What’s up, babies? It’s your boy, Specmagic,” he announced gleefully as he sat down in the hot-seat yesterday to discuss his recent call-up to the Springboks, his experience so far with the national team in Bloemfontein, and the tough decisions he needed to make regarding his career.

The 32-year-old wing is one of eight uncapped players selected by Bok coach Jacques Nienaber in preparation for the upcoming Georgia and British & Irish Lions tours, and his resolve to commit to the 15-man game reached its nadir a fortnight ago when his name was read out along with 45 others to join the squad.

A veteran of 150 Sevens matches, and an Olympic-medal winner too, the choice to switch was a difficult one, but has already repaid itself.

“It was a tough one for me to choose,” Specman admitted.

“But when me and coach Neil (Powell, coach of the Blitzboks) had the conversation he said: ‘Listen here, Rosko, if the opportunity comes your way, you have played the Olympics before … if it was up to me I would give you the freedom to go into the camp, do your best and give your everything’.

“At the end of the day, I don’t want to be that guy that said I could have gone to the Olympics and maybe won gold, or I could have gone to the Boks and won the trophy that side also. I told myself: ‘Listen here, Rosko, it’s once in a lifetime. It comes only every 12 years, so go maar for the bigger one’.

“I’m not saying the Olympics is not a big one, but I have played in the Olympics, and I haven’t played for the Springboks before.”

The journey from Sevens to XVs, from 2017 to the present, to being a shoe-in at the Blitzboks to making the Bok squad, has not been without issue. Specman was unceremoniously dumped by the Bulls earlier this year, and found himself a journeyman, stopping first at the Cheetahs before being loaned out to the Stormers. That experience, however, has reinvigorated the wing, and to his mind, made him a stronger, better player.

Said Specman: “I think sometimes when one door closes, another one opens.

“For me, the way that I left the Bulls, it wasn’t on my terms but I have made peace with it.

“It was also a turning point in terms of my career; where I could take a look at myself, and ask myself: ‘Maybe it’s not a problem with the coach, or maybe I have a problem with the coach, maybe it is me. Maybe I am not doing things the coach that is now at the Bulls wants’. That is where I looked deep into myself, and said: ‘Rosko, maybe you are the problem’.”