What a game

 

Subject: What a game.


Just  watched a fantastically physically intense rugby match between South Africa and Ireland in which two modern giants of the game went head to head, each determined to establish their strength and ferocity of purpose. In the modern game rules of play have evolved to prevent serious injury but in this game although the intensity of the tackle was high it lay just this side of brutally dangerous.
When I lived in South Africa there were no non white players allowed to play for the national side, the players were mostly from the Afrikaans community the ancestors of the Boar farmer who having landed in CapeTown in 1652 on ships commanded by the Dutch East India Company from Holland settled and developed the replenishment
farms for ships on route to India and the spice trade . They preceded the British by over 200 years and were themselves preceded by the Portuguese by just over 50 years. The toughness of those early settlers was passed down in the gene pool and South African rugby was always feared for its no holds barred approach and the intensity of their play.  
Today their mesmeric captain, Siya Kolisi is a black man and the fervour in his leadership of his countries rugby side it has become symbolic of the elements of change in the country so riven with ideas of race and separation when I lived there. The famous coming together of Nelson Mandela and the then white captain Francois Pienaar, himself a bastion of change and consolidation handing over the 1995 cup, Mandela wearing the number 8 shirt it seemed, at the time South Africa, as a nation had a great future but the politicians proved us wrong.
No one sang the African/Afrikaans anthems with such fervour as Kolisi, it was if he wished to singularly wipe out the political mess by wearing his heart on his jersey for all to see. Compared to the stoic faces of his Afrikaans teammates he was a revelation.
The game itself was a traumatic struggle from the word go and neither side deserved to lose. It was rugby at its basic best a trial of strength between men, not the woke definition of men who must be prepared to relinquish their power for the sake of conciliation.
The game swung between the sides and was only resolved as South Africa, perched on the Irish line and poised to push over with a try were penalised for an infringement of rules which leave me baffled.
There is still a way to go in this great tournament and one must take one’s hat off to the French in the way their organisation has brought near hysterical fans together to cheer their side on. Indeed we could have been in the Aviva Stadium (Landsdowne Road in old money) listening to the Irish supporters sing their support. So refreshing in a world falling apart in disharmony.