Captain Cook, Friday, February 12, 2010

AT LAST our rugby season opens tomorrow night – that's if the High Court allows the match to go ahead. Anthing can happen in this dispute over Willem Alberts and Louis Ludik. Will there be a scrumdown in court today? Will the presiding judge be equipped with a whistle? We enter new territory.

Mind you, I am not dismayed by this intrusion of the law into rugby. The game has lacked rigour for some time in the interpretation and enforcement of its own laws. Watching various overseas matches on the gogglebox last weekend – one involving our Bok seven-a-side-team in New Zealand – I saw several instances of the lunacy of this new law compelling the tackler to roll away.

That's all very well. But the laws also state that the tackled player has to release the ball when held in the tackle. If the tackler rolls away, the tackled player is no longer held in the tackle, so up he gets and sprints on like a long dog. It's a damn-fool thing and, in the absence of sensible implementation by referees, it requires High Court intervention.

I say a full bench of the High Court should be in attendance at every Super-14, Tri-Nations and Currie Cup fixture to rule on these matters. While they're about it, they can rule also on the marginal forward passes the so-called touch judges seem unable to pick up, plus the chasing from a marginally off-side position that happens with virtually every up-and-under kick. Let's not even talk of the crooked put-in to the scrum, which is hypocritically ignored.

Of course, each side would have to engage a legal team to lodge urgent applications, and this could mean some delay as m'learned friends argue the point, matches probably ending well after midnight. But life is serious these days, big money is involved, the time of carefree amateurism is past.

"It is this side's contention, M'lud, that my client's flinging of his opponent out of play and into the advertising boards did not constitute foul play, it was merely his attempt to comply with two contradictory laws – to roll away from the tackle, at the same time holding the player in the tackle …"

Meanwhile, the Chiefs tomorrow night. Er, the Chiefs? Who are they again? Hold him down, you Zulu chief, chief chief! No, not that chief. One tends to forget, now that the Ponytails have removed the geographic content from team names.

 

Of course, it's the Waikato Chiefs. Waikato – a famous name in rugby, the Mooloomen from Hamilton, North Island, New Zealand. They're the ones who beat the Boks 14-10 in their opening match of the tour of New Zealand in '56, presaging a series defeat in the internationals.

 

Springbok lock Salty du Randt used to tell the somewhat disreputable story of his encounter in that match with Peter Jones, the gigantic and tough All Black forward who also played for Waikato.

 

When Jones went up for the ball in a line-out, Salty punched him in the guts as hard as he could. It was like hitting a sack of concrete. It had no effect on Jones – he kept going up, caught the ball, came down, turned in the classic crouch, then said over his shoulder in his Kiwi twang: "By Jove Salty, this is going to be a wonderful game."

 

Why the marketing gurus want to bury all this history is a mystery. See you in the Duikers'! And later in the Filler also if the lads pull a rabbit out of the hat. Crème de menthe all round! Frappe!