Our rugby writer Zeena Isaacs explained to me exactly how the playoff process works in the Super 15.

She patiently explained that one and two have a bye and three and foor knock on the door and five and six pick up sticks – well that’s what it sounded like.

Why do rugby administrators insist on making the game so complicated it risks entrenching itself as a passtime for an elite few who have the patience to try understand it?

I could go to a remote village in Papua New Guinea tomorrow and teach 22 people the rules of soccer in no time. I don’t know how good they’d be but they’d get it.

Imagine trying to explain Rugby to them. Offside, man in front of the kicker, rucks (attacking team and defending team), coming in from the gate, daylight between player and ground, no holding on, place the ball, tighthead, losing bind, maul, collapsing the maul, coming through the middle, played inside the 22, call the mark, quick line-out, five-man lineout, high tackle, tip tackle, obstruction, dummy runner, skip pass, intercept, drop goal, penalty, try, penalty try, rule changes, rule changes back to how they were, more rule changes, referee’s interpretation, southern hemisphere refereeing, northern hemisphere refereeing…and it goes on. Can you imagine their faces?

But once you get these rules it is an amazing game and you will be in love with it for life. But then why go and add even more complication such as a Super Rugby qualifying system that frankly only one in four of my friends understands?

Rugby is an amazing game and I never miss games if I can help it, but if we are to try convince our unconverted friends to start supporting the game it would help if the IRB and SANZAR would stick with something long enough for everyone to understand it before they make another change.

The Vodacom Bulls will play this weekend’s game against the Chiefs in red jerseys. Yes that’s correct, this weekend, finally, their “Bloed will be Rooi”. It is ostensibly part of Vodacom’s marketing strategy to hammer home the point that they are now red. Even lucky fans at Loftus, which itself has undergone a red makeover, will receive signed red jerseys.

Who would have thought? Red Bulls. Let’s hope it gives them wings… but that’s a matter for another sponsor.

The Insider can not help but see a double meaning in this marketing endeavour. It seems that the Bulls’ poor form this season has left the players, coaches and fans a little more than red-faced. Inexplicable handling errors, logic-defying turnovers and lineouts as disordered as a home affairs queue have plagued the Bulls all season.

In fact, the insider believes the Bulls are slowly turning into the Lions, and by wearing red they are paying homage to their less illustrious neighbours across that mighty river Jukskei. They are dressing up as a team where mediocrity week in, week out, year in year out, is met with the same old red faces and promises of getting their gameplans and patterns right.

What next? Are we going to be told the Bulls are in a rebuilding phase?

The ICC released a statement reading: “The executive board confirmed their decision made in October 2010 that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand and the ICC Cricket World Cup in England in 2019 will be a 10-team event.” The 2019 edition in England will also include 10 teams, but there will be a qualifying process.

Okay, we certainly don’t want a World Cup that takes a quarter of a year to run, but this is simply unjustifiable. It is obvious that logistical, player welfare and TV rights play a large role because you can only have one game a day - after all it does take about seven hours for a close game to end.

But is that reason enough to take the “world” out of “world cup”, as England spinner Graeme Swann so eloquently put it? And he should know, for it was his team that was humbled by the fairytale team at this World Cup. Ireland thumped England. Kevin ‘O Brien scored the fastest century. And now Ireland know they will not play in another World Cup for at least eight years. So, despite showing up with an outrageously professional outfit, despite convincing their country to take the sport seriously, despite pulling off the single biggest upset in World Cup history, they have been given the middle finger. It’s like the index finger saying “out”, but it’s a bit more painful because the middle finger says: “Go. And you have NO review”.

Cricket Ireland set up a Facebook campaign against the decision, which the body’s chief executive Warren Deutrom called “frankly outrageous”. And it is.

In soccer – the true global game, the game that does not just talk the talk about delusions of global reach – the Netherlands are a formidable team. In the 1970s they reached to World Cup finals. Some people call them the best team never to have won the tournament. In 2006 they did not make World Cup qualification. They stayed at home while the best teams enjoyed Germany. My Dutch friends were devastated. But there was never a sense of entitlement. They knew that next time the team would have to qualify. That they did, and despite being second best to Spain they dumped Brazil from the 2010 World Cup and made the final. That’s what World Cups are about. Fantasy, disappoinment, journey and dreams.

At least the ICC have said there will be a qualifying process for the 2019 edition. This restores a tiny semblence of the word “world” would have been put back into “world cup” and it gives teams such as Ireland a chance.

Botswana have never been to a World Cup. They are on a fairytale run leading up to the African Nations Cup and they have no reason to believe that it is not possible for them to represent their country at the biggest single sports even in the world, the Soccer World Cup. That’s because Fifa gives them a chance. Fifa gives them a license to dream. That is the magic of soccer. That is the magic of a global game.

As for Ireland – your dreams have been dashed. You may get more joy from ESPN’s World Rock Paper Scissors Championship.

brownd@bdfm.co.za

I found it quite funny reading reports from England accusing their cricket team of being chokers, and bemoaning “yet another” early exit from a world cup.

But I don’t think it is surprising, and I can’t believe no one saw this one coming.

The reason England are chokers must be because the backbone of their team is South African.

Aah, the cynical South African fan – it’s just not cricket.

The Proteas are unbeatable

That’s right.

Every time the Proteas take to the field it is a foregone conclusion that they will wipe the floor with anyone before them.

They are unbeatable and it is only a matter of how big their victory will be, against anyone. In fact, they are so good that they themselves are the only ones who can influence whether they lose.

It can be the only reason that every time the team loses they are called chokers. The description “chokers” only holds any water if the team was almost “guaranteed” victory and through their own mental weakness they threw victory away.

Generally this would apply to a high-stakes game where all they had to do was play and win. It does not take into consideration the opposition, and how well they are playing, how opposition bowlers are swinging the ball both ways, how good captains make good calls at the right time, how pressure leads to wickets falling in clumps, and how batting second on a tricky pitch is always going to be difficult against quality opposition.

And “South Africa A” are always going to be quality opposition.

England deserve all the credit they get for their work in the field and do not deserve to have their brilliant win downplayed by old, boring chants of the Proteas choking.

It’s boring. And as a cricket fan I would love to read Graeme Smith’s responses to different questions such as: Is Kallis struggling to regain form after his injury? Are you confident that our middle order is match-ready?

Was it the right decision for AB to try anchor the innings? Were you too defensive in your approach, or did the wicket itself demand this approach?

But the men in green are not the only guys who will have to field the same old rehashed questions at press conferences. The men in black who play with the odd-shaped ball are the rugby equivalent of chokers and they will have to field those questions every tournament until they win their second World Cup.

The only difference is: the All Blacks really are the most dominant team in world rugby and are expected to win. However, the hype around the Proteas this time was that they were not expected to win the tournament.

It’s a lose-lose for Smith and co: if you win you should have, if you lose you choked.

But please, Smith, that doesn’t give you license to throw around another South African favourite… Please stay away from the other rehashed, old, and frankly boring, chant that there is an agenda against you. Smith, there are no third forces, no agents and no agendas. Just cricket matches.

What would we do if we didn’t have people we love to hate? Or even worse, hate to love?

And it’s not just S’Africans.

Just read the foreign wires and English websites to see how they report on Kevin Pietersen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I watched episode two of Stephen Fry In America for the upteenth time.

Despite the brilliant British wit and breathtaking shots and scenery, the highlight is an American football match in Alabama. This is no national title or “world series” or superbowl or salad dish or whatever.

Rather, it is a derby between two local colleges at a local stadium called something-or-other. I don’t even know if it was televised outside the state.

Wow.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amid all the hysteria after the Springboks’ embarrasing display on Saturday, I feel there is a need for sense to prevail.

It takes a massive effort to turn the southern hemisphere’s best players (two SA teams contested the final as the kiwis sat at home and watched) into the whipping boys of world rugby. Indeed, Harry Potter (or is it Harry Potgieter in SA?) would be hard-pressed to conjure the monumental undoing of champions that we witnessed in the Tri-Nations.

But it doesn’t end there. Just to prove that they are indeed wizards, the Bok coaches magically went on to write 2010 into the history books on Saturday night in Edinburgh as our more talented cousins dressed in black were about to sink the Irish en-route to their third Grand Slam in five years. I think my father was listening live on the radio when the Boks won their last Grand Slam. He talks of it fondly, sucking his dummy while sitting on his Oupa’s lap.

Read the rest of this entry »