Manie Libbok became the 931st Springbok last year, but SIMON BORCHARDT argues we’ve already gone well past the 1,000 mark.
One day, a South African will run on to a rugby field and become the 1 000th Springbok. However, what should be a moment of celebration, for the player and South African rugby, will probably cause controversy and division.
That’s because the first 557 players on that list were capped by the South African Rugby Board (Sarb), from 1891 to 1989. During that time, black and coloured players were ineligible for Springbok selection, with Errol Tobias and Avril Williams the two exceptions, having been capped in the 1980s when Sarb was trying to get the Springboks back into international rugby.
When the Boks eventually did return, in 1992, they were captained by Naas Botha, who had become Springbok No 502 when making his debut against South America in 1980. The flyhalf was one of 11 Boks capped between 1980 and 1989 who added to their tally in the ‘New South Africa’.
I recall Thando Manana, who become Springbok No 708 in 2000, tweeting that the unified South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu, which later became Saru and SA Rugby) should have started the Springbok player numbers list again from scratch in 1992.
Had Sarfu taken that approach, Botha (as captain) or fullback Theo van Rensburg (going according to position, from 15 to 1) would have become Springbok No 1 when playing in that first-post isolation Test against the All Blacks at Ellis Park. Instead, Van Rensburg became Bok No 558 and Ben Duff, who played for the first Springbok team against the British Isles in 1891, remains No 1. The latest Bok, Manie Libbok, who made his Test debut against Italy in Genoa last November, is No 931.
In contrast, Cricket South Africa (formerly United Cricket Board of South Africa) does not recognise the first 235 men to play Test cricket for South Africa, from 1889 to 1970, including legends of the game like Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards. Tertius Bosch, who made his Test debut against the West Indies in 1991, is No 1 on CSA’s list, and not Owen Dunell, who became South Africa’s first Test cricketer in 1889. The latest Proteas Test cricketer, Tony de Zorzi, has the number 121 under the badge on his shirt despite being South Africa’s 356th Test cricketer.
While I understand CSA’s rationale regarding the numbering of capped Test players, I’ve always thought SA Rugby got it right. You cannot erase the past, and the fact is that South African rugby players and cricketers were capped by national organisations that were members of the International Rugby Football Board (now World Rugby) and the Imperial Cricket Conference (now International Cricket Council). Teams that played against South Africa also awarded caps to their players, and those matches are in the record books, like it or not.
However, I do think SA Rugby needs to include those who were excluded from the list of capped Springboks because of the colour of their skin, or risk being forced, at some point in the future, to start the list from 1992.
As part of its ‘Yesterday’s Heroes’ programme in 2000, SA Rugby capped and presented Springbok blazers to players who represented the Proteas (the national side of the coloured South African Rugby Football Federation), the Leopards (black South African African Rugby Board) and Saru (the non-racial South African Rugby Union) during apartheid.
What those players never received, though, were Springbok numbers. SA Rugby can still rectify that.
Those players could be worked into the current list, according to when they made their debuts for their respective teams, but that would result in new numbers for hundreds of Springboks.
The least disruptive way would be to simply add the ‘new’ players to the current list, with the first player added becoming Springbok No 932.
With hundreds of players to add, the 1,000th Springbok would be one of Yesterday’s Heroes, and a potentially divisive milestone could become an inclusive, unique one in world rugby.