The School of Hard-Knocks
4 April 2011
Sitting at Newlands as a youngster in the early to mid-nineties we were fortunate enough as kids to have had the scholar stands that ran all around the boundaries of the field. It was a real treat, right next the action as close as possible as we could get to our heroes, back then we were even allowed to run onto the park when the game ended and meet the players. Not much was better than being able to run up to Andrew Aitken, Tiaan Strauss, Gavin Lawless, Keith Andrews and the likes of, to congratulate them on a game well played or condole them on a loss. I will never forget the fist fight that broke out between legendary Blue Bulls and Springbok hooker Dr. Uli Schmidt and his Western Province counterpart Morné Visser right in front of us. It was brutal. Schmidt and Visser were both of the hardest and toughest men in South African rugby. Very much in the same mould as New Zealand’s Anton Oliver. All three men could take a punch and more alarmingly could throw an even bigger punch then their opponents could dish out. We loved it, we were baying for blood. The more blood the better. It was the norm of the day. No yellows cards. The worst that would happen was the ref told them they were being naughty boys and sent them off to the cooler for 10 minutes and that was that, end of story.
In 1996 when I was in Matric that all changed on one fateful, bitterly cold Friday evening in Southern Suburbs of Cape Town. Western Province faced their arch-enemy the Blue Bulls in the Super10 competition. Because of the wet conditions it was a very scrappy and needless to say a less then enjoyable game of our beloved sport. The Blue Bulls won the game. What happened after that stunned the Western Province crowd and South African Rugby. An over-eager spectator jumped over the scholar seating, ran onto the field and assaulted the referee as he was making his way off the field. At the time ,I, along with my mates were more upset about the incident because the following Monday, Western Province Rugby Union announced that they were doing away with the scholar seats because of one blood-thirsty, most likely liquored up idiot. 15 Years later I realised that the one thing is South African Rugby that hasn’t changed is the supporters thirst for blood.
Rugby has never been a game for soft men; alas rules change for a reason. The same as things have changed in South Africa of the last 17 years, things have changed in Rugby in the 15 years since they did away with the scholar pavilions at Newlands. What I find the most alarming of all is the standard of implementation of the law. A punch is a punch. Just as much as a Bulldog and a Maltese Poodle are both dogs. Last weekend in the Super 15 game between the Stormers and the Highlanders a few punches were thrown and the referee Mr. Pro Leghota ruled the altercation as accidental punching. Since when do two guys punch each other accidently? Doesn’t the law state that it’s an offence deemed worthy of a card and a citing? One thing is for certain. Foul play is starting to get out of hand and the guilty parties aren’t receiving the punishment they deserve. There are clear double standards and it doesn’t just apply to Australians and New Zealanders receiving lighter sentences then South Africans. It applies locally as well.
A few years ago, there was spate of vicious attacks and assaults on the rugby fields of South Africa. It started off in Rawsonville in the Boland when Riaan Loots was beaten to death in a club game between Rawsonville Rugby Club and Delicious Rugby Club. The following week in Stellenbosch not far away from Rawsonville a player was kicked in the head in another club game, putting him in a coma. Those are just two incidents. There have been many more since.
Rugby has changed to the degree where players are weighing in at a whopping 120-130kg at age of 16. The laws are in place to protect players from the dangers of rugby and should be implemented to the full. Players need to be punished for not adhering to these laws. Bakkies Botha who we all know as a serial offender was lucky to escape the citing commission without a sentence because of a technicality. Bakkies shouldn’t be allowed to play this game. His ‘Enforcer’ title is juvenile. All he is is a bully. It has nothing to do with players not being tough. There is no need to try and decapitate fellow South Africans in a game, anybody for that matter. I was appalled by the seeing how many people condoned the actions of Bakkies. Sonny-Bill Williams should be serving a sentence for his shoulder charge on Ryan Kankowski. The Williams incident didn’t even make the Citing Commission because it wasn’t deemed an offense worthy of a card.
Having done research on the impact and percentage of Rugby injuries the statistics were alarming. What was more alarming was that injuries have been on the increase since all these new laws were put in place to protect the players. A study conducted by Dr Robert Neil Dunn (MB ChB, MMed (Orth), FCS (SA) Orth. Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Cape Town) and Dr Dirk van der Spuy (MB ChB. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Stellenbosch University, Tygerberg, W Cape) on Rugby and cervical spine injuries revealed the following. Average patient age was 25.3 years; 19% of them were scholars. The most injuries occurred during the tackling phase. 39% occurred during foul play. Forwards and backs had the same injury rate. A third of players were not stabilised with a collar on the field; and 65% were taken to an inappropriate primary contact centre. A median of 10 hours elapsed before admission to the ASCI unit. Facet dislocations occurred in 59%; 8 presented neurologically complete and remained so; and 3 presented with residual sensation, with 2 improving to normal. The study also concluded that over a period of a 26 years injuries caused by foul play have have gone up from 3% to a staggering 39%.
Props and Scrumhalves each made up 22% of the injuries. Flanks, Centres, Wings and Hookers made up 11% each. Fly halves made up 7% and Locks came in at the lowest with 4% of injuries. In the 61% injuries not caused by foul play the break down was as follows. Tackling topped the charts with 52%; Scrums 37%; Ruck or Maul 7% and 4% were unknown. It appears that the South African injury rate is still unacceptably high, even if the catastrophic incidences are lower. The most noticeable variable is geographic distribution. The vast majority of our injuries occur outside metropoles and where the level of patients’ formal education is also low, suggesting that the less regulated games carry the higher risk. In the metropole, there may be better coaching and referee control of play, and the players may be more disciplined, possibly by virtue of higher education. This may be borne out by how few cervical injuries are sustained at professional level, where one expects the game to be far tougher. Consistent with the possibility of inadequate game control is the high level of associated foul play – 39% of the injuries resulted from foul play. The referee only took action in 75% of cases, in the form of a penalty or carding the offender. 75% is not enough. The sad and unfortunate truth is that the youngsters look up to their heroes and mimic them on the fields. As the number of rugby players is not known, the reported number of spinal injuries does not necessarily reflect an increased incidence in the peripheral clubs. However, the findings in the study provide a focus for involved parties towards improving the safety of the game and maximising recovery in the few unfortunate, injured players.
We don’t live in ancient Rome any more. Many people seem to think that a Saturday at the Rugby is the same as a Saturday at the Colosseum watching Gladiators maiming and decapitating each other. There’s a distinct difference, we are more advanced and civilized, or at least we’re meant to be. There’s that old adage saying “Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans and Rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentle”. With the stats above nothing could be further from the truth.
Let’s keep this beautiful clean and enjoyable. I would love for my kids to enjoy this game as much as I did both as player and as a spectator. Let’s keep Rugby healthy in South Africa. Let’s reverse this perception of South Africans being dirty players. Let’s set the benchmark for the rest of the world.
Morgan L. Piek
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