Let’s put the Boks’ terrible season into perspective

WE HAVE all been guilty of it, particularly in the last month. We have all, in one way or another, pronounced the ‘death of Springbok rugby’. We have all mourned at the latest ‘funeral’ of the green and gold, as the nation’s colours were lowered by supposedly inferior opposition.

Go to public forums, visit some fan blogs, or stand at a braai. Heck, go to a newspaper stand, or click through the headlines from last Sunday, the Sunday before that and, if we are honest, the one before that, too. We have all been at it, going on as if our world has ended.

Make no bones about it, enduring a Springbok Test match in 2016 has been the stuff the most evil of punishments are made of. It has been torturous, deeply wounding and acutely embarrassing to observe a once-proud team trudge through tactical treacle and then proceed to drown in a sea of uncertainty and vulnerability.

The rugby world, relentless and remorseless as it has ever been, has feasted on the easy pickings, knowing full well that 2016 was as timely a vintage as any to hear Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika before the game. We’ve grown accustomed to defeat and disgust as simultaneous Saturday supper servings, and flat screen TVs across the country have winced in anticipation of the next item to be hurled towards them in red rage.

We have all been guilty of it, cursing the gods and declaring that something inside of us has been dying every time we see the Springboks trot out. But, a dose of perspective was delivered to us this week.

Chapecoense

An entire Brazilian football team was wiped out in a plane crash, on their way to a continental semi-final in Colombia on Monday. Though most of us may not have known too much about the Southern Brazil-based club, the utter devastation of the tragedy is haunting.

The details and the apportionment of blame are futile matters now, because the consequences are irreversible. Over 70 families have lost a father, a mother, a son, a brother, a sister, a breadwinner, right at the peak of their powers.

Among the deceased, there were 21 journalists, all no doubt thrilled at the chance to chronicle a historic occasion.

Alas, everywhere you look now, there is a tearful narrative. Among the flood of personal heartbreaks, is the story of striker Tiago de Rocha Viera, just 22.

Viera had found out last week that his wife was pregnant, and his spontaneous reaction of elation became an internet sensation. Videos are all his wife and his unborn child will have of him now.

The community of Chapeco held a vigil at the club’s home ground. A sea of green replica jerseys sobbed in silence, as the news stubbornly refused to sink into a country where football matters even more than rugby does here. This was supposed to be their dream season, a fairy tale that knew no bounds. These players were their Supermen, their immortals, their purveyors of the impossible becoming so fantastically real.

Those fans, those weeping thousands, they know what real grief is. They, more than any other fans in the world right now, know what profound loss is.

They will attempt to pick up the pieces eventually, but could you blame them for mourning forever at the reality of the whistle being blown prematurely on their boys in green?

Look at Sir Bobby Charlton whenever Old Trafford remembers the Munich disaster of 1958, when he lost his mates. Ask any fan of Zambia to think back to 1993, when they lost their national team to an air disaster. The pain never goes away.

So, while we bemoan a grim year – a few grim years, even – perhaps a touch of perspective is imperative at this point. The Boks will run out again next year, and they will surely be better. Surely. They will get their shot at redemption, and the chance to avenge and then consign 2016 to the scrap heap of life’s lessons.

They will live again, as will a rugby-mad nation, even if only vicariously through them. We should be so lucky.

Rest in peace, boys of Chape.