SA Rocks

What do you think about this?

Should this be a race issue, is the team rejecting the man, is the media overplaying the race card?

Should the team have the power to attempt to reject Peter de Villiers? I don’t think so. I think they need to put up and play.

I also think I need to quickly say something about support and fanatacism in SA. Let’s put it this way. Peter de Villiers is screwed. The man has the toughest four years ahead of him. He can expect SA fans to hate him when we lose, love him when we win and use his race against him. We can expect some sort of media rumble about the Bok camp being in a mess.

And we can expect that the Springboks WILL NOT WIN the next World Cup. As fans we need to be realistic and factually accurate. No team has won it twice in a row, No coach has either so let us not put that much pressure on de Villiers. I think that a more reasonable goal is for our teams to perform well again in the Super 14 and to try and win the tri-Nations tournament. That is a realist goal in my opinion.

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It seems as though the rumours had some truth to it a few months back. I just read on IOL that the ANC are planning to unite SA sports under one emblem, The Protea.

I am a bit torn over the issue. Should the Springbok die? Should the national emblem not be the Springbok over the Protea? I think the Protea is a tad bland and boring.

However the Kiwis are not actually represented by a kiwi. They have a freakin’ leaf, they aren’t represented by All Blacks, but are still called that. So who’s to say that our emblem can’t be a Protea and we still call the team the Bokke?

Only time will tell.

Here’s what Mr Oregan had to say:

My personal view is that the Springbok emblem should be retained, because it has the ability to unite the nation, as was demonstrated during and after the World Cup. I still see all South Africans, of all colours and creeds, wearing the Springbok shirt and jersey around me.

“So I’m shocked to hear about this now,” Hoskins said.

At least Oregan has something valuable to add. De Villiers on the other hand shows a bit of a yellow belly:

That’s a policy matter, and I don’t think I will ever comment on policy matters my bosses will do that.

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I just recieved the below email from a friend. The principal is grand, the sentiments are nice but I just don’t get it.

As part of the South African Rugby watching public, we collectively spend millions of Rands each year, watching and following our National Rugby side the Springboks. We also spend thousands of Rands buying branded items such as Rugby Jerseys and Flags etc. We know we have contributed to the financial success of SARFU through gate fees and sponsorships due to companies advertising on TV and in stadiums whilst they have a captive audience, and as such we have a vested interest in the continuing success of our national side. Despite SARFU’s best efforts to derail the Springboks World Cup Campaign, Jake White, John Smit and the current crop of Springboks have overcome incredible odds and challenges, the biggest of which were from there own governing body, to be crowned world champions. The victory Parades have not yet finished and again SARFU is meddling with the pride of a nation and doing its best to ensure South Africa will be World Champions in name only for the next 4 years. (I don’t see us winning too many tests with these clowns at the helm) The country united behind a winning team and their success overflows into our work place and economy.

WE feel Springbok Rugby belongs to us the South African public and as such show a vote of no confidence in the current management of SA Rugby namely the South African Rugby Football Unions Presidential Council. We herewith call for the immediate resignation of Messrs, Stofile, Hoskins, Basson and Prinsloo and all there incompetent colleagues

This is a democratic country and this is how we the public feel. We have had enough of SARFU’s bungling efforts and political meddling in our sport the past 10 years. We want SA Rugby run by people who have played rugby at a high level and have SA Rugby’s best interests at heart, not their own political agendas.

Let’s get this petition started!

Write your name and e mail address below if you would like to see these people go and forward to your mailing list!!

Every 100th person should send the mail to sarfu@mweb.co.za ( E Mail Address on their Web site)

No you wont get R10,000.00 in your account this week if you forward to all your friends, and maybe SARFU wont read it, but at least we’re doing something about how we feel and not just complaining and sitting on our asses!

Like I said, the sentiment is nice. But let me get my two cents in:

Firstly email petitions are a load of rubbish. They never work, they might, maybe raise awareness for a fraction of a second and then they enter the realm of spam mails that we receive years after they were first sent. Enough said.

Secondly, Jake White is a Hero to our nation. He is exactly what we all should be striving for. Not a world cup, but an attitude. Everything Jake did was done in spite of those above him not because of them. Jake to the reigns, took the lead and made a difference to the people immediately around him, his players. Then when his players felt the change they lived the change, then when they lived the changed they won the World Cup. Then when they won the world cup more people were exposed to it and so on and so on.

Let the man go if he wants to go. I think he should go, in fact, let him go to the team with the highest bid. He deserved it. We deserved him as a nation, we got him and he won us the cup, simple. Now let him go. He is allowed to, it is time for him to go and it is time for the bosses to get out of their systems whatever it is that they need to get out of their systems. Jake does not need to be apart of it.

Furthermore, no coach has ever won the cup twice. I think Jake needs to leave SA on a high, get out while he is still a hero and do whatever he pleases thereafter. He deserves the best.

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This is a bit delayed, sorry, I’ve been a bit lazy!

Myself, Carly, Justin and Jason tried our hardest to welcome the Boks in to Rosebank on Friday. What we got was soaking wet and some great footage and patriotic displays! Unfortunately we didn’t see the rugby players as we were too wet and mistimed the entire event!

Here are two videos from the event:

And here is one from Carly Wienberg at The Times:

Brought to you by: The Times Multimedia

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The one and only Keo.co.za is our featured blog interview this week. Let’s get into it:

Hi Stu – Can I call you that or is it a secret?

You can indeed, most call me Ig and a lot of other names probably not worth reproducing here.

So your blog is pretty much the most popular blog in the country. How’s that feel?

Pretty dam cool. We never really had anything to compare ourselves against to until Amatomu came along. But it is very rewarding after all the effort from the Keo team in the last three years.

You are a fairly tough guy to get in touch with. Is this something you’ve done on purpose? There is no “contact us” section on your blog in case you didn’t notice!

Funny – people keep pointing that out. Beginning to think we should add one ! There is an email link for the webmaster – thats gets you just about anything you want. And most of our readers just post their questions in the comments and i try to answer them – as do all the guys who write on the site.

What have you done to make Keo.co.za so popular? Is it the sports angle?

Sports in SA was always going to be a winner, and when Keo started the site it was admidst the whole 2003 World Cup debacle, and a little bit of contraversy never hurt, i think our biggest asset was Keo.co.za was one of the first out there in terms of allowing fans to talk back, As opposed to a lot of the traditional columnists who offered an opinion and no channel to challenge it – this has of course changed and just about every media site now offers this facility these days.

We also got quite a lot of paper exposure through the columns Keo wrote for the Business Day, the Independant Group – and this gave us great exposure to South Africans who love nothing better than to talk about rugby. Keo.co.za is also the official online partner to SA rugby and SA Cricket magazine and provides branded content – which also brings us new readers all the time. I also think on any day that you vist the site – you can get a snapshot of the entire rugby world – and leave an opinion – and i think this is our single biggest reason for our success.

Do you ever get berated for what you cover with regards to black/white/racial sports? Too much rugby, not enough soccer, too much cricket?

Keo is essentially a rugby site, we didn’t really cover anything else until the end of last year when we added cricket looking to the world cup in the West Indies, it was met with mixed reaction, some didn’t like it, some did. In terms of the politics in sport – we do cover it and it generates a lot of debate – not all good . We have had a couple of requests not to publish stories covering the political side of sport – but the reality is we publish news and if we don’t publish it – someone does in the comments and the debate will go on.

If anything we get more complaints about stories we have missed !

What do you think makes SA such a special place to live?

Dude, you have to ask ? It Rocks !

Is our sporting culture different to that of other nations or does every nation think that?

I think we are particularly unique for a variety of reasons, South Africans love to rally behind winners – Look at the RWC wins – dam it sounds sweet to say wins and not win – , The African Cup of Nations win, all our Olympic athletes – we love them and we celebrate them and back them to the hilt as long as they win – if they don’t South Africans can be a little harsh on passing judgement from the couch. But i think most nations have the same vibe – everyone wants to win, we just seem to create obstacles to our success whenever we can.

Are there any future growth plans for Keo.co.za or other projects you are planning?

We have endless ideas about expanding the site, but time and money tend to get in the way, i hope by next year we would have added a couple of podcasts and video casts, we are looking at a shopping section for supporters. Hopefully in the next few weeks these ideas will firm up and we will implement them. My biggest fear is to be just another rugby website – we want to be the place rugby fans visit on the web because we are the best at it – not because the site has endless features.

You don’t often cover women’s sports, is that going to change or do I just keep missing all those blog posts?

I think in the 7000 odd articles in the databse – 5 are about the Womans Bok team – so in short no we don’t really cover womens sport.

Do you truly believe that sporting patriotism has an effect on the broader community in the long run, like the RWC win for example?

Yea i do, its been shown time and time again in SA and abroad. People need heroes. And our sporting stars tend to deliver more often than not. Its a great unifying force.

In closing, what do you have to say to all your loyal readers and all those amazing South African sports fans?

Without you we wouldn’t be where we are today, we luuuuurve you.

Thanks alot for participating Mr Keo! Keep on rocking!

Keo is probably Mr Keo himself ! But you cannot mention the site without mentioning – Simon, Jon and Ryan who generate our copy all day and all night. They deserve alot of repect and take a lot of flack.

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To the 15 men who carried the hopes and dreams of 48 million people on their shoulders last Saturday night and did not drop them, all I can say is THANK YOU – and you deserve it.

You had me on the edge of my seat all through the match and you had me in tears when you received the trophy and hugged President Mbeki one by one as you filed past, victorious.

On Friday (according to my English colleagues!), we were “overconfident”.

On Saturday, we were the world champions.

I walk around with a new spring in my step, alternately humming Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and that completely silly and completely addictive Bryan Habana song, smiling benignly at all the Poms crying in their coffee. My favourite moment early last Saturday night was when I was rushing home on the Tube to see the game, naturally wearing my Bok T-shirt and surrounded by red and white shirts. Leaning laconically against the platform doors at Waterloo was a tall black guy sipping his beer, waiting for the train and wearing a Bok jersey. We fleetingly made eye contact, then recognised each other’s shirts. I gave him a quick grin and a thumbs up; he winked and raised his beer to me. It was like being in a secret society. And being surrounded by all these red and white jerseys everywhere gave a whole new perspective to Bok van Blerk’s line “‘n handjie van ons teen ‘n hele groot mag”…

And still, we won.

To celebrate this historic victory there can be no more appropriate drink than a springbokkie. It’s green, it’s gold, and it’s delicious. But be warned – it’s also addictive!

You will need:
Amarula Cream (or substitute Cape Velvet Cream or Bailey’s)
Creme de Menthe (or any similar mint liqueur)
shot glasses
a teaspon

The ratio of the 2 ingredients to each other is up to you. I have seen recipes that call for half-half, while others suggest more of one or the other. Personally I would not go much further than half half – too much Creme de Menthe and it tastes like Listerine!

Fill half of each glass with Creme de Menthe. Then carefully top up by pouring the Amarula over the back of the teaspoon so that it floats. Down in one gulp if you must… but I much prefer to sip it

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Today I blog as a truly proud, motivated (and somewhat hungover) South African!

We all watched the game and if you didn’t, where have you been living?? I am not going to rehash the incredible 80 minutes of magic and accomplishment.

What I am going to do is ask everyone who has photos of their World Cup winning experience to please email them to me or post them on the SA Rocks photopool on Flickr.

I will then compile one massive post with photos of the world cup from around the world! I already have photos on Flickr from South Africans in San Francisco!

Please contribute with your photos, videos or any other media you can send in!!

GO THE BOKKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update:

Here are some videos, reactions, blogs and news stories from around the world and South Africa regarding the Win last night!

Then read here, here, here, here and here.

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This is my prediction at least! I have no doubt in my mind that this will be the outcome.

I think that we have the determination to do it and the humble, focused attitude for the win to be possible. It might not happen, there is always, always that chance but so be it, that is sport. It is not the be all and end all if we don’t win. But we will!

An interesting discussion that I was part of the other day centred around what it would be like in Wimbledon, Putney, Essex and other areas in England that have a high SA population. I think that either way there is going to be upheaval in those areas. British pubs with losers (either way you look at it) inside pissed of and pissed in general

The combination of Saffas, Pommes, beer and win/loss outcome is potent and deadly. I sincerely hope for the sake of every Saffa over there that the Bokke destroy England on Saturday. If they don’t life is going to be considerably more uncomfortable at work, at pubs and at play for any South African living abroad.

All in all I think that the world cup this year was a success and the nation building that took place has been welcome.

Congratulations to the Bokke and England for making it to the final. May the best team win!

Tracey McGregor agrees with me… keep your eyes up lads, listen to the audio.

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I am interested to know how everyone feels about New Zealand and Australia going out of the Rugby World Cup?

Personally, I feel a bit saddened that they went out. I am of the mind that it would have been incredible to have four teams from the Southern Hemisphere in the semi-finals.

It can also be argued that if we don’t beat Aus or NZ that we don’t really play the best teams. I am not sure about this logic. I firmly believe that when SA wins this final it will be by beating the best team simply by the fact that they are in the final.

NZ are renowned chokers and Aus simply lost their heads. So they went out to better teams on the day and thus deserved to leave the tournament. At least now we still have Argentina and SA in the final. It is a pity that the SA semi-final wont be the final, would be a cracker.

What do you think?

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Wow, what a Sunday. I can’t bare to blog for long on this topic as it has already sapped enough energy from me.

We won, we are through. The game today proved that complacency equals loss. So say Australia and New Zealand. Let’s hope we have our heads on firmly in the right direction for Argentina.

It was a great game to watch, with lots of action and great scoring. Fiji played a phenomenal game and were well deserved adversaries for a quarter final. They deserved to be there and put on a great performance. Well done to them too.

GO THE BOKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEE!!!

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