Sport Development and Diversity

Business Day has a great article exploring why black rugby players who seem to succeed on the field in junior rugby do not succeed as they go up the age brackets.

It is an argument I have made before, in my experience with badminton in Cape Town. Sports development is not only about training and coaches - it is about nutrition, about emotional support, about family support, and a whole lot else. If kids are going to spend hours to get to training, development is not sustainable. If kids are not going to get good nutrition at home, they will physically not develop regardless of the hours they spend in gym as part of their training. If they do not get support in their education and family life (which may be in non traditional family structures) they will have other things to worry about.

That said, I am not sure that boarding school, as advocated, is the solution. In my own experience in Cape Town, the fact that top players (including national players) stayed an played in the community was in itself a promoter of the sport. Ultimately, I think a balance is required and it required support from multiple spheres of government and civil society.

Blue Bulls vs Canterbury Crusaders

For the first 35 minutes, and the last 10 minutes; The Crusaders absolutely dominated The Bulls. They forced the Bulls to make mistakes, dominated possession and it was mostly one way traffic. In those 45 minutes, the visitors scored most of their 30 points, to the hosts' 6.

A final push from the Bulls before half time, resulted in a penalty score, narrowed the half time deficit. After the break they came back a team possessed, scoring 20 unanswered points. For the 30 minutes, they were unstoppable; but then things went wrong as they went back to losing possession, and making stupid mistakes. But despite the last desperate moves, more than a couple of minutes past the final horn, the Crusaders still came 2 points short.

Actually, it should have been a comfortable victory for The Crusaders. But the reliable Dan Carter missed 3 kicks, 2 fairly easy ones too. And that was the difference.

Gautrain to the game

The success of public transport can be measured not only how well it works during working hours, but also how useful it is for leisure activities. It is in the latter, that Gautrain is quite lacking. After all the train stops at 8:30pm, when clubs etc are still thinking about opening!

This afternoon, I decided to go watch the Bulls play the Crusaders at Loftus in this weekend's Super Rugby matches. The train was quite full, so I was not the only one with the same idea.

Hatfield, the closest station, is still quite a distance from the stadium (about 20 minutes walk). I noticed that this is the same for Supersport Park. So a simple suggestion; have some auxiliary transport arrangements during big events; matches concerts etc; and then the value of the train becomes so much more!

Super 14 Final

Rugby in Soweto - not as novel as last week, but still an incredible experience. One of our key security suppliers invited a colleague and myself to the final, and it was an incredible experience.

It was not only the setting - but the atmosphere outside the ground was also quite impressive. The locals really took it to heart, and well, tried to make a few bucks also by offering "secure parking"; often with signs in Afrikaans to help, such as the offer of "koue biere vir Blou Bulle".

Orland Stadium is actually very impressive, with excellent view of the field. The "big screens" are rather small, but apart from that, it is an excellent stadium for sport watching; with an incredible atmosphere. And the vuvuzelas, really trumpeted; mostly blown by the rugby supporters themselves; as opposed to being blown by locals. Given this, I think it is highly hypocritical for rugby authorities to ban vuvuzelas from their stadiums!

The game itself, while good rugby, was marred by the Stormers consistently giving away penalties, within kickable distance from the posts. That more than anything else gave the Bulls the victory. And while it can be debated whether the Stormers were denied a try; Bulls did, overall, play a better game.

But the standout memory of the afternoon occurred on the way to the game. About a KM away, while waiting in traffic, one of the guys needed to go to take a leak. So he and his friend jumped out, and went to the toilet at one of the houses on the side. Later, he commented, any other suburb in predominately white communities, this would be unheard off - even if it was in the neighborhood of Loftus or Newlands! And when they came back, a French girl, also jumped in. She was a reporter for a French radio station, and spent some time interviewing us of what we thought of the event and our experiences so far. Just before the stadium, she jumped out, probably to interview more people!

Bulls vs The Hurricanes

Went to see the Bulls vs The Hurricanes, courtesy of one of the vendors I deal with at work (in their shared box). I had always heard of the great atmosphere in Loftus; and even though it wasn't full house; it was a very supportive crowd. The rugby itself was rather uninspiring for most of the game - with a few flashes of individual brilliance here and there. It wasn't a great game to be honest; and the Bulls struggled a lot with basic errors throughout the game.

What was really interesting was the allowance of letting the crowd onto the field after the game (and ceremonial duties were concluded). Small games of touch rugby started all over the ground, and this is perhaps one of the reasons the Bulls have such a fanatical home support. After about 20 - 30 minutes, the security staff slowly cleared the field; and the stadium slowly emptied.

Sharkcage

My first visit to the Shark cage in Durban (ABSA Stadium, formerly known as Kingspark) was a bit underwhelming. The rugby was rather patchy, with handling errors galore. And despite the limited choices in getting a ticket, the stadium was not at all full ... and the atmosphere could not be compared to a full Newlands for example.

It is however very easy to see how the stadium can be overwhelming - the stands are very steep and even down a few rows, there is a feeling of being in the spotlight, surrounded by people - I wonder how the players feel.

Hopefully, next time I go there, the stadium will be full, and the game will be a lot better.

Oh, the new stadium for 2010 next door is quite stunning!

A Really Bad weekend for English Sport

After thrashing the English 36-0, their rugby team seemed to grow a spine, and led a truly remarkable recovery: beating the Aussies and then the French in the Semi Finals. And that brought upon the predictable hysteria. The already high final ticket prices (they were 700 Euros for the cheapest seat to about 2000 Euros for the really good seats at the start of the tournament) exploded, and CNN reported people paid over 8000 Euros for a ticket!

I met up with Lee who was guiding some South Africans on a VW Touareg experience through Germany, at an Irish Pub in Nuremberg, which had a whole lot of English, a few South Africans and some (confused) Germans. The atmosphere was electric, with the English singing all the way, but the game, while remaining tight, but out of their reach.

It was hardly a brilliant game, but it was an epic contest. And, it seems that 15 is the magic number for South Africa and Rugby World Cups.

Throughout the week, the British press had been talking up the weekend double: winning the Rugby World Cup followed by Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula 1 WDC. Hamilton, more or less shot himself in the foot at the start, when all his Schumaresque luck, seemed to have deserted him (although it can be argued that luck deserted him in the last race). His attempt at regaining the position he lost to Alonso at the start forced him off the track (in previous races, it was usually him forcing people off the track), leaving him at the lower end of the points paying positions. Later, a gear problem, threw him down to last place. Mika Hakinen (who was attending the race) must have been reminded of the similar incident he had in 1999, in a McLaren, in Brazil. To Lewis' credit, he fought back very well, eventually finishing in 7th place. But Kimi, who went from 3rd in the WDC to winner, drove a flawless race, and the Ferraris imparted the ultimate humiliation to Hamilton - lapping him halfway through the race. The McLarens were no match for the Ferraris, finishing over 30 seconds behind - but after such a scandal filled season, it is great the a McLaren driver did not win the WDC.

So it is great to be a South African, a Bok supporter, a Tifosi, and overall not English. To show how bad things really are - they lost 2-1 to Russia mid week, which means that there is a very real chance that they might not even qualify for Euro 2008 At least they won the cricket in Sri Lanka (but then they were expected to lose ... maybe that's their magic formula).

TV Blues

Somehow, TVs and I have not got on well this past year. There was the story of my TV card at the beginning of the year. And two more incidences from the last week to add to the list.

Firstly, I bought a really old TV from a student for €15. It worked for a while, but doesn't any more. It is to be expected really ... don't think I was intentionally sold a bad TV ... it is old, and to be expected.

Then, acting on Hans' recommendation (and doing what I should have done initially), I got myself a DVB-T stick. It is actually a very cool device: very small and compact, and works quite well. Except for two things:

1. Erlangen does not seem to have any digital TV coverage of the two channels with mostly English content (CNN and MTV).
2. The reception in my apartment for Eurosport (for the Rugby WC) and RTL (for Formula 1), the two German channels I want most, is almost non existent. It does work elsewhere ... I have tried it in a park for example, and was watching F1 on Sunday while surfing the net at a Cafe!

And to mess it all up, the TV cable in my room seems to be analogue only (probably a Cable TV source). The channel that works best however carries football, some Bundesliga matches and some Euro qualifiers. So it is not all that bad I suppose ...

F#$%*&@ Stormers

What a crappy sporting weekend ... Ferrari and Schumi gets beaten by Fernando the most boring grand prix of the year so far (resulting a crappy return on expenses for food at sports cafe). But it was spoilt already by the really pathetic performance of the Stormers in their Super 14 match against the Bulls. I mean, come on ... a maximum of 31 points deficit was all that was asked, but no ... all the Stormers could do was score 10 points and let in 43! And the Stormers players were bitching about not being included in the Springboks squad ... there is the reason! Admittedly part of the fault does lay in with the Sharks, first for not beating the Bulls and secondly for letting in the late try from the Western Force but rationality has never been a strong feature for sports supporters ;)

Black Saturday of South African Sport

If you haven't heard; Bafana Bafana are out of World Cup 2006. So, even though we are hosting 2010; we won't be playing in 2006. Bafana Bafana have had a very poor run lately, they lost in the COSAFA cup semis, they lost 4-1 to Iceland and then they lost 3-1 to Burkina-Faso. Even worse is the chance that Bafana Bafana could still not qualify for the Africa cup of Nations (also in 2006). On the brighter side, the under 23s did thrash Uganda 4-1 - the 2^nd goal (from Lewis IIRC) was an amazing display of teamwork and good finishing ... maybe that's the team we should have sent to Burkina-Faso.

Also, we lost the Tri-Nations on Saturday when the All Blacks thrashed the Wallabies. For the first 20 minutes in the second half, South Africa had hope when the Aussies fought back from 20-0 to 20-19; but then a certain sub named Dunning gave away 9 points in less than 5 minutes; and after that it was all downhill. But even though we lost; this was probably the best Tri-Nations performance from the Springboks.

Oh, it was also Sarai's b'day party on Saturday ... the aftermath of alcohol consumption is best left untold.