Passing of a legend
A CHAPTER in rugby genius has closed with the death last weekend of Skonk Nicholson at the age of 94. Skonk, who had coached rugby to generations of schoolboys at Maritzburg College, had a profound impact on the game.
To look at just one position, he produced Keith Oxlee, Joel Stransky and Butch James, flyhalves of world class who played for Natal and South Africa, Stransky kicking the winning drop goal for the Springboks for victory in our first-ever World Cup.
He produced Craig Jamieson (scrumhalf) who skippered Natal to their first-ever win in the Currie Cup.
But Skonk Nicholson's contribution to rugby went beyond stardom of this sort. He imbued all who played the game at College (and in my day that meant everyone), at whatever level, with the spirit and ethos of rugby. He radiated it to all.
Skonk had an unequalled grasp of the technicalities of rugby – scrummaging techniques, line-out techniques and positional play. Players got to the point of breakdown with minimal expenditure of energy. Everyone on the field knew where he was supposed to be.
He also grasped the all-important psychological component of rugby, the power of positive thinking. Outsiders were often astonished to find that at College rugby practices there was minimal tackling, the accent was on mobility and getting to the breakdown. Skonk knew that effective tackling was a state of mind, it didn't need to be practised.
He was also a great innovator. The international practice of the hooker throwing the ball in to the line-out, instead of the blind-side wing, began with him at Maritzburg College, releasing an extra threequarter for attack. A lesser coach might have discouraged Toffee Sharp, Skonk's star winger of the 1960s, from his outlandish, round-the-corner place-kicking with the instep, soccer-style, instead of with the toe of the boot. Today that style is used everywhere in the world and at every level.
Skonk was a combination of steely determination, good humour and gentleness of demeanour. For him rugby was a game of honour, its gentlemanly ethos all-important. For the many thousands whose lives he touched, his passing is a sadness yet simultaneously an occasion for pride and celebration of his accomplishment.
Tall dude
THE POLICE in New York have warned banks to put higher partitions around their counters as interim protection against a tall robber who has struck seven times in as many weeks.
They've identified him as Ukrainian Marat Mikhaylich but are yet to pull him in. Mikhaylich is so tall at six foot five that he is able to tower over the existing security barriers and threaten the tellers with a gun. He has so far got away with about $60 000.
Meanwhile, Interpol has put out an alert on three Lithuanian robber dwarves who are headed for New York. Their modus operandi is to stand on each others' shoulders, tower over the security barrier with a gun, snatch the cash then run off in three different directions.
My dear Watson
AN IBM super computer has beaten two human competitors on the American quiz show, Jeopardy.
The computer, known as Watson after an IBM former president, is capable of performing 80 trillion operations per second and has developed a facility to cope with ambiguous questions.
However, it has no sense of humour. It failed to laugh at the presenter's jokes.
Watson is a natural for Anne Robinson and her dire Weakest Link programme.
Lijmerijk
READER Pieter Aarsen sends in a limerick translated from Dutch. He says a friend who served in the KNIL (Royal Netherlands Indian Army) during World War II was taken POW by the Japanese. Conditions were very harsh and a sense of humour was necessary for survival. The limerick:
There was a POW locked up in Yokohama,
He was so thin that he had only one stripe on his pyjama;
Then one morning at four
He slid away underneath the door
And escaped on the back of a llama.
Ik zal dit graag in de oorspronklijke Nederlands zien.
Tailpiece
PHARMACIST: "I'm afraid that for arsenic you need a prescription. A photo of your mother-in-law just isn't enough."
Last word
With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn't think possible in today's world. They have created a land of make-believe that's worse than regular life.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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