ShowMe South Africa

Text: Angus Powers. Photos: Karl Schoemaker / Gallo Images/Getty Images/AFP.

As South Africa’s newest Super Rugby franchise steadily reconstructs a proud rugby tradition from the top down, the unprecedented achievements of a township school offer a glimpse of what South African rugby could look like if it were built from the bottom up.

Cheeky Watson doesn’t have a desk in his office, and he doesn’t want one. Instead, the president of Eastern Province Rugby finds a couple of black leather couches and a coffee table far more useful in his line of work. It’s a special brand of realpolitik that has brought the Eastern Province Kings this far, this fast.

A fixture against the British and Irish Lions, the hosting of an All Blacks Test match, and guaranteed entry into Super Rugby in 2013; such things are not accomplished by a pen-pusher, and it’s not without some pride that Watson likes to describe himself as a “political animal”.

As an administrator, Watson is no slouch either. He wasted no time in recruiting an ultra-loyal backroom staff (including former Springbok prop Robbie Kempson and one-time Bok conditioning coach Phil Mack) under head coach and director of rugby Alan Solomons, whose CV includes stints with the Stormers, the Springboks, Ulster and Northampton. Watson also negotiated a lease on Port Elizabeth’s new Nelson Mandela Bay stadium; unified the Border, South Western Districts and EP rugby unions into a focused Super Rugby franchise; and has tirelessly articulated the region’s rugby ambitions. In only three years on the job, that’s plenty of boxes ticked.

Nonetheless, it goes without saying that with their team still languishing in the Currie Cup First Division – and De Wet Barry, Jaco Engels, Mpho Mbiyozo and Mzwandile Stick until recently their most marketable players – only a certain calibre of political instinct could have persuaded the South African Rugby Union to grant the Kings a Super Rugby start date and to promise to shoehorn them into the competition via a yet-to-be-revealed mechanism.

That instinct is Watson’s calling card.

“One has to realise that the Eastern Cape is the heart and soul of non-racial rugby,” he says, relaxing on a couch in the players’ lounge, deep in the bowels of the imposing NMB stadium. “It’s a unique rugby culture where you have equal participation and support between black, white and coloured people.

“The important thing for us is to deliver a professional team that attracts attention, which we have succeeded in doing, and now it’s time to build the foundational structures: our Academy, a working relationship with the (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan) university, and to put structures in place at the bottom.

“With 120 clubs spread all across the region and wonderful schools, this is a sustainable franchise. A lot of building still has to be done, but that cannot negate the fact that the foundation is unbelievably strong. It’s just to get the two to meet: the professional team and the foundational structures.”

Ten kilometers away in New Brighton township on the industrial outskirts of Port Elizabeth, Theo Pieterse has a desk, but no office.

Instead, from the teacher’s end of Room 36 at Ithembelihle Comprehensive School, Pieterse masterminds the most successful black schoolboy rugby team in the Eastern Cape, and probably in the country too.

Crowded round the blackboard, Ithembelihle’s 1st XV absorb some of the most important lessons of their lives: nkomo, inconconi, batista, imbumbulu, umkhonto, istrinzela (cow, mosquito, tough guy, bullet, spear, zombie) and dozens of other blitzkrieg plays scribbled up in chalk, coded in Xhosa and destined for use against all comers, from local township scrappers to rich white schools and touring overseas teams.

“Umlungu”, as Pieterse is casually known to both boys and teachers, arrived at Ithembelihle in 1979, lured by an education department that paid his petrol money and staffed the school with masters degree-qualified teachers.

He stayed on through the turbulence of the 1980s, endured the broken promises after liberation, and is still here, dispensing lessons in social science and history, the most popular of which involve Hitler and Stalin (strong men, in the pupils’ eyes, who defied the odds to sweep all before them).

If a school as impoverished as this could be said to have pedigree, Ithembelihle is a blue blood. Solly Tybilika, who played for the Sharks, Lions and Springboks, is the most high-profile of the five Currie Cup players to have passed through Pieterse’s hands, and the Ithembelihle coach currently has four more players in the Kings Academy, and another six in provincial age-group teams. And if the school owned a display cabinet, three trophies from this year alone would be on show: the spoils from their hard-fought FNB Classic Clashes win over neighbourhood rivals Ndzondelelo (particularly satisfying given that Ithembelihle couldn’t get a game in the six weeks leading up to the derby); the inaugural Mayoral Cup; and the @tlantic Sevens Plate, convincingly won at the Eastern Province regional tournament last month.

Ithembelihle weren’t always a rugby powerhouse, but in the last 10 years they have been hard to ignore. They have won the SARU-sanctioned Dennis Botha tournament three times; their category of Die Burger Cape schools competition four times; the Peter Mkata tournament four times; a 30-team night series six times; and bragging rights in their FNB Classic Clash for five consecutive years.

And although they were @tlantic Sevens Plate winners in 2009 as well, their dismantling of Brandwag B, Bredasdorp, Framesby and Nico Malan this year was nothing short of emphatic, considering that the only match they lost was their first one, against eventual winners Tygerberg – who, as winners of the @tlantic Sevens Western Cape tournament, shouldn’t have been competing in Uitenhage in the first place.

But it’s against the big white schools in the 15-man game that Ithembelihle have made a name for themselves, often inconveniently so. In 2004, when they beat Framesby (who, along with Grey High, pride themselves on being Port Elizabeth’s strongest rugby school), it was the last straw, and the Framesby first team coach found himself out of a job.

Newton Technical High, Despatch High, Muir College and Daniel Pienaar Tecnical High are four more rugby traditionalists who did not enjoy coming off second best against the township team and, for reasons of their own, all have declined further fixtures.

Brandwag have also been humbled but, to their credit, have not shied away from rematches. Neither have Grey High, who have forged an excellent working relationship with Pieterse over the years (the schools first played each other in 1983). After their first team squeaked home 29-20 against Ithembelihle in 2009, Grey gave a better account of themselves when they won 29-3 in Ithembelihle’s first outing of this season back in March. Invited to Grey’s prestigious Easter festival a month later, Pieterse’s side went down 24-17 to Nico Malan and 33-0 to Kearsney College. With four players out injured, the Kearsney scoreline was no disgrace, especially as Parktown Boys (43-14) and Graeme College (36-0) suffered similarly at Kearsney’s hands. To put it all in perspective, Grey High went on to be ranked the 17th best school in South Africa at the end of the season. Kearsney are ranked 11th.

If Pieterse had hoped his team’s results would speak for themselves in their quest for more regular fixtures against stronger opposition, he was sadly mistaken. A rumour that Ithembelihle fields over-age players has refused to go away, and is invariably trotted out by white schools eager to dodge an awkward invitation to play. Desperate, Pieterse requested an official investigation, and his school was unequivocally cleared of cheating. Prejudice and insecurity, though, run much deeper than that.

“Now the white schools say, ‘Ah, so that is how you beat us!'” repeats Pieterse bitterly, the vile words echoing in his classroom. “‘It is impossible for a black school to beat a white school!’ They say straight to me, ‘Kaffirs kan nie rugby speel nie.'”

Fresh from the gym, Luke Watson is drenched in sweat from head to toe. Even his handshake is slippery. Fiery personal conviction is not something the younger Watson has ever lacked, and here at the Kings – where gladiatorial commands are posted on the walls: Today no-one crosses our tryline!, Take everything, give nothing!, Rip out their hearts and souls! – motivation can never be far from anyone’s mind.

“The main reason I came back was because of the vision of the Kings,” explains the former captain of Bath, who arrived back in his hometown four months ago. “The Kings have so much potential, as a franchise, and to create hope for underprivileged areas and for areas which haven’t had the opportunity to experience top-flight rugby.

“Obviously the Kings have this vision of bringing through a lot of as yet undiscovered talent from disadvantaged areas to top-flight rugby, but a lot of people are highly critical, saying that we don’t have a lot of locally based players. Well, that’s because our local players are playing all over the country.”

He has a point. Twenty-two players born in the Eastern Cape turned out for South Africa’s five other franchises in Super Rugby this year, pulling on every single jersey from 1 to 15. From a quality point of view, 12 of those 22 are Springboks. From a development perspective, nine of those 22 (and six of those 12 Boks) are players of colour. The numbers left the Kings with three conclusions. First, in the Eastern Cape, quotas should be an outdated concept. Second, with the region boasting three of South Africa’s top 10 schools according to the year-end rankings, it’s no secret where the future strength of their rugby lies. And third, their success as a competitive franchise hinges on whether they can deliver on their slogan of “Bring them home! Keep them home!”

Luke Watson’s arrival as the Kings’ marquee player has undoubtedly provided a welcome jolt of genuine star power. Playing as the SA Kings, the Eastern Cape franchise beat Georgia, Romania and Portugal to win the Nations Cup for Tier 1 nations in Hungary in June, and under his captaincy have pushed hard for their second Currie Cup promotion-relegation match in as many seasons. In the boardroom, meanwhile, there is pressure on the Academy and a strong NMMU ‘Madibas’ Varsity Cup team to come on stream as soon as possible to siphon EP schools talent into local professional rugby, thus preventing it from trickling away to the rest of the country. But both of the Kings’ business units – a competitive first team and a vibrant Academy – are subject to the vagaries of the market, and sometimes sheer force of belief seems to be all that keeps disaster at bay.

For instance, although the Academy has in its first year of operation already shunted five players into the Kings’ senior ranks, with a class of 31 and a yearly turnover of only 10 players, it’s merely dipping a toe into the Eastern Cape’s sea of talent. And at first team level, the stakes are already sky-high after SARU’s announcement of a new format for the 2012 Currie Cup (involving a six-team Premier Division and an eight-team First Division) that appears to preclude the top First Division sides from any shot at promotion at all.

Cheeky Watson, however, is undaunted. “I think the jury is still out on the structure for next year – top six and bottom eight, or top eight and bottom six. There is a strong call that the status quo should remain,” he says. “To fiddle around with a competition in the middle of the competition doesn’t look good or bode well. I don’t see it as a final decision. We still need to ensure that we are in a promotion-relegation game at the end of 2011.”

Not only is that prospect far from assured, but Watson has also had to bat away criticism that the Kings have been putting out a team which is worryingly white, despite a healthy 40% of the squad being black or coloured. “It’s a building process,” he answers, adding that “we’ll only be satisfied with the professional side once it’s 70% black.” For Watson, the Kings’ first principle of business is non-negotiable: a competitive team playing top-flight rugby has to come first; everything else – the sponsorships, the TV revenue, the gate takings, the stars and the trickle-down development – will logically follow in due time.

“(They say) ‘it is impossible for a black school to beat a white school!’ They say straight to me, ‘Kaffirs kannie rugby speel nie!” Theo Pieterse.

Of course, even if Currie Cup Premier Division status is secured for next year, and a soon-to-be-announced headline sponsor pumps an extra R50-million per year into the franchise, the precise manner in which the Kings will be elevated to Super Rugby remains a mystery. A straight replacement of the worst performing incumbent? A promotion-relegation playoff? And for how long? A year? Two years? Three?

“To be honest, I don’t care,” retorts Luke Watson. “I… 100%… don’t care. Whatever decision is made, we’ve got to go with it. The bottom line is that I believe this region deserves an opportunity. Other regions have had 15 years of Super Rugby and some of them, with no disrespect, have not made any massive waves or impact. I’m not saying we deserve favouritism. Just an opportunity.”

It is a peculiar formulation to encounter in the world of professional sport: to trade on the past while dreaming of the future.

In New Brighton township, with the past too grim and the future too precarious, every day is lived in the here and now. And right now, at Ithembelihle first team practice, under a wind-blown sky and in the shadow of the substation pylons, there is only the swish of legs through knee-high grass to be heard.

The school’s field, if it can be called that, resembles a stony sandpit in summer, a lake in winter and a subtropical grassland in between. The most basic definition of a sports field – four white lines demarcating the area of play – is completely lacking. The repercussions are severe, for without a touchline or tryline, how to practise line-outs or score tries? With no half-way line, come to think of it, what happens to kickoff?

“This is the reason there are not enough black players in South African rugby. Grassroots rugby!” Pieterse snorts. “Here’s grassroots. Bloody long grassroots!”

In July, Sedbergh College and Wellington High – generally regarded as England’s top two rugby schools – toured South Africa, and both left shell-shocked after squaring off against Pieterse’s team at the local municipal ground. Wellington took their 17-14 win and fled, telling war stories of forwards as quick as backs, and relentless waves of elusive ball-runners who just didn’t know when to stop.

“Sedbergh College came here. Sedbergh beat Paarl Boys High, who are No.2 in South Africa,” says Pieterse. “They beat them. They came here, and we played our structures… we were leading 20-17 with time up, and then they came with a massive attack up front and scored the winning try.” He pauses. “If I could play white schools regularly every year, I’m telling you, I would beat or come very close to beating most of them. The thing is, we don’t get to play them.”

There are a lot of things Ithembelihle don’t get to do. They train without a scrum machine or tackle bags, and usually without breakfast or lunch either. Thanks to broken homes or unemployed parents, match-day rations are two breadrolls each (which Pieterse picks up from a friendly baker), a couple of slices of polony, and a glug or two of cooldrink all day. To earn a buck, the boys play club rugby, notching up in excess of 60 games a year between club and school. The accumulated hardship makes them super-tough. When they saw the field they were scheduled to play on at Grey High, they laughed out loud. A featherbed!

Ludwe Jack is their captain, a nimble, explosive Will Smith-lookalike with a habit of scoring match-winning tries from outside centre. “The food is not that much of a problem,” he says. “But we want to play against the white schools. That is the main problem. And we want our field to be fixed. We need to play against white schools because we don’t have any competitors in the black or coloured schools. We beat all of them.”

Ask around (even at the Kings) why white schools aren’t taking Ithembelihle on, and the excuses start coming. Like: Ithembelihle only have a good team some years; otherwise they take 80 points. Or: Ithembelihle can only field two teams; it’s a waste of time for schools whose rugby depth reaches down to U14C.

The cheap shots anger Pieterse. “I’ve never taken 80 points! Never!” He spits out the words. “No side has ever run over me. Our biggest defeat was last year to Grey, when they beat us 44-0. And that was the day after we’d played our Friday night Classic Clash against Ndzondelelo, which we won 12-3. The guys were moer toe. They kill each other in those derbies. That is my biggest defeat ever.”

As for the two-team cop-out, with a couple of phone calls Pieterse can put 10 or 12 or 14 teams on the park tomorrow, right through the age-groups from U14 to U19. None of the surrounding township high schools or higher primary schools have many teams, it’s true, but they all have a team or three busting for a game. Then it becomes purely a matter of logistics and transport, and Pieterse’s done it before, bussing teams through to Grey and Brandwag and Muir.

“Some of those boys played whites for the first time in their lives and they learned a hell of a lot,” says Pieterse. “To play here,” and he gestures at the township, “blacks against blacks… they’re not going to go anywhere.” Bussing keen-as-mustard composite township teams around the province might not be ideal in the long term, but it’s certainly feasible, and the establishment’s unwillingness to embrace and facilitate rugby development does nothing to inspire confidence in the Kings’ so-called foundational structures.

But, as Kings CEO Anele Pamba inadvertently illustrates, attitudes need to change, regardless of income bracket. “If a black kid studies at Grey, his parents will watch him (play sport) at Grey. If he’s at Ithembelihle, there will be no parents at Ithembelihle,” he says. “If I had a son at Grey, I would watch him at Grey. At Ithembelihle… I would probably behave differently. It’s a question of culture and parent responsibility.”

Pamba’s observations might go some way towards explaining why even a supposedly self-respecting school like Ithembelihle records up to 25% of their teachers absent every day, is filthy with litter, and tolerates boys urinating against classroom walls. Or why rugby at once- proud neighbour Newell High, whose alumni include World Cup-winning Springbok manager Zola Yeye as well a clutch of struggle politicians and pre-unification SARU legends, is in dire straits at present.

Perhaps not so paradoxically, as an Ithembelihle old boy himself (who played prop for Pieterse), the Kings CEO can also not quite clarify why Pieterse’s plea for a rusty old scrum machine lying around unused at the Boet Erasmus stadium has fallen on deaf ears for more than a year.

“What we’re currently doing in our (rugby) development is a secret,” writes Pamba intriguingly in an email to Sports Illustrated, “and (I) don’t want it exposed to other provinces.”

From where Danie Gerber stands, it’s not the foundations the Kings keep talking about that are in doubt, but rather the business acumen required to exploit them properly. Gerber, who has the most prolific try-scoring strike rate in Springbok history, now spends his days as a sports development officer for Pennyfarthing Construction, providing tens of thousands of rands’ worth of rugby and netball equipment to township schools, as well as helping out with backline coaching at Ithembelihle.

“There’s a lot of talent that we’re not looking after,” says Gerber. “It must just be picked up and helped and used. I’m telling you, the whole country will buy players from this region. I mean, the Kings want players to play for EP rugby, but there are so many players that if they look after them, they’ll be able to sell them to every province in South Africa.

“If we could get these players into the system, they’d be really, really good. They don’t eat in the morning but they practise hard for two hours, running on sand and stone.

They’re very keen and are there to learn. But it’s not easy; there’s very little money and nobody’s helping. I do more coaching and helping the black guys than anyone at the Kings, and if I had the money, I would definitely look after a couple of guys myself.”

Ironically, at Ithembelihle Pieterse is already running a micro-version of the rugby business that the Kings dream about.

Players migrate from as far afield as KwaZulu-Natal to play for him, whether they know where they’re going to stay, and how they’re going to pay school fees, or not. Next year, five more players are expected from Umtata, one from Bloemfontein, and another from King William’s Town. In return, as well as unintentionally supplying players to local white schools when they are poached, Pieterse has exported four players to Free State club rugby, and has fielded enquiries for talent from Super Rugby interests further north.

Some Port Elizabeth schools are lucky enough to send coaching staff to job-shadow at the Kings, but Pieterse isn’t holding his breath for an invitation, just as he knows the Kings aren’t about to commit to a time frame for their highly speculative plan to turn a handful of top township rugby schools into rugby centres of excellence, capable of putting out enough teams to keep the white schools happy. Instead, impatient for the latest coaching techniques, Pieterse taps his network of contacts for feedback from the regular workshops that Cheetahs coach Naka Drotske holds with club and school coaches in Bloemfontein. Even the All Blacks’ training sessions while they were in Port Elizabeth were scrutinised for possible additions to the Ithembelihle game plan. Modest sponsorships from businesses like Umzingisi Foundation, Spur and Furnworld International are then eked out over a season to cover training necessities and transport to the tournaments that matter; the team’s superbly-drilled attacking play does the rest.

And now, at training, as the shadows of the pylons draw longer over the unruly grass, Ithembelihle as a microcosm of the Kings again seems a weirdly appropriate comparison: the have-nots of South African rugby and their small-scale cousins, the have-nothings.

In fact, if Cheeky Watson ever found himself watching a session from these non-existent sidelines, the stocky white man with the loud voice – moving among black youngsters who love the game just as much as he does, in a world of substandard facilities and limited opportunities – might seem eerily familiar.

And so he should, and not only because 30 years ago Watson faced that very man on the rugby pitch – Watson on the wing for Crusaders, Pieterse at hooker for the University of Port Elizabeth.

Indeed, if Watson ever cast an eye over Ithembelihle’s patch, and saw how those boys thresh through the wild grass, he might think that they might think that they were actually side-stepping and goose-stepping during an exhilarating curtain-raiser on the Kings’ manicured turf at NMB stadium.

So, when practice ends and the players beg Umlungu for taxi fare and enough for a loaf, Watson – if he were there – would see Pieterse peel off 60 bucks, then another 50, then finally hand over his remaining R5 coins and shake out his wallet in a show that there is truly nothing left. Then, as Pieterse grins and shrugs and climbs into his battered old VW Golf, might not one last question hang in the air as Watson turns away…

What would Cheeky do?

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