The South African rugby team is busy setting itself up for the final swansong of the year against Wales, a game many are calling a battle between former greats. And while a Springbok victory may restore some lost pride, the damage has been done, and change is needed. A record of four wins out of 11 in a calendar year is just not acceptable to any South African rugby supporter, and the players and management themselves. Accountability is a word lost in government, and one wonders if it will be the same with sports. Management must hold up its hand, but the problems go higher, as Graeme Joffe referred to in February this year. And let’s not forget the players, the lack of spirit and desire is not acceptable, and again highlights the depth of the rot. A solution seems nowhere in sight, and while heads should roll, there still needs to be a plan of action, and the time for talk is over. Regular contributor Mike McWilliams asks if it is time for South African rugby to choose the Prokhorenko option, a Russian soldier who called down friendly fire on his own position to give the enemy a taste of their own medicine. He says there really is nothing to lose, especially after being humbled by Italy. – Stuart Lowman
By Mike McWilliams*
Our Rugby team has reached such a nadir in international competition that desperate measures are needed, however these measure are unlikely to be taken either by clueless SARU structures or by the Sports Ministry.
Malicious government policies are concerned only with racial representivity and the destruction of everything that once made South African Rugby the envy of the world.
The appointment of sport administrators, ministers and coaches purely on the basis of their race, with these same people majestically setting quotas for teams, again based on colour rather than ability or merit.
This has finally transformed our heretofore magnificent teams into racial Frankenstein’s Monsters incapable of doing anything without the say-so of their mad race-obsessed masters.
It follows that, if we are to resuscitate our Rugby, we need to reverse the bad policies and appoint people to positions of responsibility based on merit rather than because of their race and political or family connections.
This is of course common sense, but how to do this in a society that has become so race-obsessed that anything smelling of merit or ability is hysterically thrown out with the bathwater in the name of Transformation, a word that has become a simile for failure?
This is where the Prokhorenko Option* comes in.
If one is surrounded and all hope is lost, your only hope of possible survival and eventually winning is to call down friendly fire on your own position to give the enemy a taste of their own medicine.
Luckily, South Africa has a successful blueprint for an operation like this.
Not very long ago, massive and unrelenting international pressure was brought to bear upon a South African government who were doing much the same thing as this government is doing.
The international Anti-Apartheid movement used the West’s universal dislike of racial discrimination to shut down Rugby and other sports that discriminated against players and administrators. Those heroic campaigners for equality and human rights are still around, probably casting about looking for another cause to demonstrate their virtue.
This time around, South Africa has an even more powerful claim to the do-gooders attentions. Now, it is a majority suppressing a minority instead of the reverse.
That British MP and Anti-Apartheid moral colossus, Lord Peter Hain has just accepted an Adjunct Visiting Professorship at Wits Business School, so he is really handily placed to right the wrongs of the ANC in a hands-on and urgent manner.
This icon of Human Rights would surely be able to crank-up the old anti-aparheid machine and this time, use it to good purpose to defend a fragile minority from the ravages of a racial majority, bent on the destruction of the minority’s culture (including Rugby) using that race-based juggernaut of cadre deployment and race-quotas, the ANC.
It's 😢to say but no rugby nation FEAR the Springboks anymore.Peace
— Bakkies Botha (@BakkiesBotha4) November 19, 2016
The correctional modus-operandi needs small adjustments to detail, but the means of applying pressure remain the same.
Firstly, the regimes favourite sport must be targeted. In this case Soccer rather than Rugby would be the victim. All aspects of the sport in SA must be closely examined and the usual shrill threats, followed by draconian punitive action should be brought to play.
Naturally, as with the original campaign, all other sports showing the slightest signs of discrimination against Whites will follow in a solemn march to the gallows.
Demands for equality that, if not immediately acted upon, will bring down international sanctions.
The pressure brought to bear can be considerable.
Unfortunately, unlike Rugby during the Apartheid years, South African Soccer has very little to be proud of, so the threat of not allowing Bafana Bafana to play internationally will not carry as much weight as the threat against Rugby did.
Bafana Bafana are far from being the international force that SA Rugby was in years gone bye. In fact they habitually preclude their own participation in big events by failing to qualify.
However, hope springs eternal in Bafana Bafana fans who are always convinced that a new non-White coach will solve all their problems and restore Bafana Bafana to its former glory when the team was coached and captained by people of the Other Race.
Lord Hain will hopefully fire up all the old Labour Rent-a-Crowd luvies to don their sandals and picket South Africa House around the clock, throw flour bombs on the playing- fields and do all of those spoil-sport things that pressured the Nats into total capitulation.
South African Rugby fans and players now have nothing to lose but their chains. The sport can hardly get any lower in international rankings. Calling down an air strike on their own position will be a small mercy to the sport that is not even managing to breath in its politically induced coma.
- In March this year, a Russian Special Forces officer, called an airstrike on his own position after running out of ammunition and being surrounded by terrorists.
- Michael McWllliams is the author of Battle for Cassinga and Osama’s Angel.
