STUART LANCASTER might well think the pressure is building ahead of the World Cup. Well, he has got it easy compared with Heyneke Meyer, the besieged coach of the Springboks. Some of the criticism from Sir Clive Woodward may have irked Lancaster, but Pieter de Villiers, the first black manager of South Africa, is attacking Meyer on a whole other level.
The Springboks suffered a sequence of defeats in the Rugby Championship, including an unprecedented and (for South African fans) humiliating home defeat by Argentina. In De Villiers’ South African rugby column he wrote of selection decisions that “took the country back to the late 80s when blacks supported the opposing team because of apartheid”.
And that’s just the rugby angle. The largest union in the country, Cosatu (the congress of South African trade unions) launched into Meyer after the Argentina defeat, calling on the South African Rugby Union to stop “pandering to this racist white interest represented and led by the coach”. Desmond Tutu has criticised Saru for the “tortoise pace” at which transformation has been taking place at the national level. It is as if Bob Crow and the Archbishop of Canterbury had joined forces to berate Lancaster.
Even in victory there is no respite for the Springboks coach. Reacting to the defeat by Argentina, Meyer brought Zane Kirchner, Lwazi Mvovo and Trevor Nyakane into the team to bolster the black representation from the two who had started the previous match. This was perceived by his critics as “proof that only external pressure works”.
Meyer is under enough traditional rugby pressure to produce results that match the expectations of what remains a largely white support base. Harder still, he has to deal with the angst of the apartheid years that will not go away. He has vowed to maintain his integrity, which, he says, is “more important to me than just winning”.
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Which brings us to the enormous moral question: is winning, even a World Cup, all that counts for one of the most powerful rugby nations? Is it better for South Africa to celebrate their team simply because the quota figures that make Meyer’s task so difficult have been met? The conservative coach is being buffeted by forces far more powerful than the Springbok symbol, which for some is still a symbol of oppression.
“I don’t look at colour, I look at the best players. I’m committed to transformation and I have a great relationship with my players.” Meyer does not sound racist and does not act like one but this country is ravaged by its apartheid past. Like slavery in the USA, apartheid leaves an immoral scrum that only the great, like Nelson Mandela, tried to strike clean. Lesser mortals cannot.
Reading the words of Tony Ehrenreich, the Western Cape’s regional secretary of Cosatu, it’s a fair guess that here is a political manipulator rather than a giant of his times. In the union’s barbed press statement he referred to the privileged position of white players and the captain Jean de Villiers as an example. The captain, we are informed, walked back into the team when he was not the form player.
The latter statement is true. De Villiers’ injury did affect his form but some players are greater than the sum of their contribution on the field, and he is such a player — an outstanding captain and a hugely impressive and decent person; if this “privileged white person” is part of some subtle plan to hold onto South African rugby’s repellent old days there’s not much hope for any of us. Throwing rubbish at De Villiers can only weaken South Africa’s prospects.
The other De Villiers, the one that coached the Springboks in 2011, did the same. John Smit was kept as captain when Bismarck du Plessis was at the peak of his powers. It was all right for him to stick with an out-of- form skipper but not for the white coach.
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Reverse racism was a card Pieter de Villiers was prepared to play. Any South African journalist who criticised his exciting but erratic ride as Springbok coach was branded pretty much a white racist; that was De Villiers four years ago and now he plays the same trick again. If he has his way, the Springboks will not win the World Cup. But is that a price worth paying to advance the opportunities of the majority of a nation that lacks the same rugby culture and opportunity as the white population to play the game?
To the Springbok players and the colour-blind Meyer the answer is no, for Bryan Habana as much as Victor Matfield I would guess. Players get lost in the intense focus of their preparations and ambitions. External and objective assistance is required. Right now that assistance is either politically opportunistic or ignorant in rugby’s ways. South African rugby and its grass roots could use some help but I don’t see the current critics rising above apartheid’s divisive history to give it.