There have been several interesting stories coming out of the Test matches this autumn. Clive Woodward, manager of England, has had his spats with Eddie Jones, coach of Australia, courtesy of the running lines of the All Blacks of New Zealand. The All Blacks themselves have had a go at the French for a catalogue of reasons, mostly to do with violence. The Welsh are always good for a story, simply because moaning there is such a hoot. But nothing compares with the story of South Africa. The story that is South Africa.
On the scale of exposure during this three-Test spell, the Springboks bring up the rear, the bottom team in the Tri-Nations being the final visitors to Twickenham on Saturday. Overshadowed they may be on the field, but they are more compelling than all the dummy-runners in midfield, all the sneaky jabs at the line-out, all the pleas for everyone who cares about rugby to pull together, for God's sake, mun... more compelling than all that put together.
And they will probably remain so until 13 black players and just two whites line up for the anthems in the old green jersey of the Springboks and nobody bats an eyelid. Race is an uncomfortable issue except in countries where there is no racism. So, here we approach it with trepidation. Or do I only say that because I'm writing from my comfortable white position, the side being approached, as it were? Spend time with South Africans and you question all sorts of things.
Anyway, imagine what it must be like in a country where rugby was the chosen sport of the very people who enshrined apartheid in law. Then came emancipation. Or apparent emancipation. Ten years after South Africa were formally allowed back into the international rugby fold and seven years after they won the World Cup on a wave of rainbow publicity that proclaimed that the old days were gone for good, Chester Williams, Springbok wing and the very face of that publicity campaign, wrote his story: Chester. A Biography of Courage . In it he recalls being inspired to take up the game again - it was often safer for an apolitical black rugby player in Magnolia Flats simply to give up playing - after watching James Small in action. They were later to play in the same Springbok team as wings, but they also had to play with and against each other at provincial level.
'You fucking kaffir. What are you doing playing our game? You know you are no good at it,' Williams recalls Small saying during a match. That was one arresting statement, but Williams also recalls being placed in isolation by less conscious means. He cites the meal-time experiences in hotels while on tour. If he, the single black player in the party, went down early and took a place on his own at a table, he could be sure that when the other players came in they would not join him.
Williams was also left out of key negotiations among the players, led by François Pienaar, even in the week of the 1995 World Cup Final, on the subject of joining Ross Turnbull's breakaway rugby circus. The threat of the circus was the trigger that turned rugby professional from within, rather than by a rebel operation on the outside.
But that is another story. On the subject of the treatment of black players inside the Springbok camp, Williams has surprised and annoyed his former team-mates. The white ones at least. But Breyton Paulse, who came into the team on the wing as Williams's knees both gave out, agrees with him. 'In my case, when I first came in,' he told me last week in Edinburgh, 'there was no direct racism. But I did have that feeling of isolation within the camp.'
Through 'affirmative action' South African rugby has a quota system, a minimum number of places per squad, depending on geography, reserved for black players. But to be a 'quota player' has negative associations. Hell, let's face it, it is only used pejoratively. White guys are never dropped because they're not good enough; they only go because space has to be made for a quota player.
It all came out in 'Chester'. The reaction of the South African Rugby Football Union, the governing body of the chosen sport of the old apartheid regime, has not been of the old school. The book was written by Mark Keohane, who also happens to be the communications manager on this tour. He had shown the manuscript to the chief executive of Sarfu, Rian Oberholzer, who said that this was an issue that had to be addressed. He said that this had to be a chance to create an environment in which any player might 'break through without prejudice'. As for Chester Williams, he remains the highly respected coach of the South African seven-a-side squad. It is held that within five years he will be coach of the Springboks.
Paulse was invited to address the team before departure on this tour. He said that for the first time he felt part of the entity. He said that he would not wish to play - not even for his country - if he felt he was not deemed genuinely good enough. In 1996 he felt that someone had forced the then coach Nick Mallett to pick him. He was constantly being told he was not big enough. Now he felt big enough and strong enough to be a Springbok. It was a turning point for all the players.
The only trouble was that the Springboks were promptly beaten up and outclassed by the French in Marseille last weekend. Rudi Straeuli, the coach without whom none of the candour and reconciliation would have been possible, picked a big pack and saw it dismantled. He was the architect of a new passion and pride in the team and he saw his team's heads drop at the end of the drubbing.
What would the reaction be now? They took it on the chin. In fact, they held out their chin and invited it to be, er, chinned. Centre Robbie Fleck promised that they were still worth supporting. 'We've set out on a very exciting course, and we're not going to stop because of an upset.'
Hooker Lukas Van Biljon said: 'The oaks in the team and the oaks in the squad all want to show the oaks back home that this is an opportunity to put things right.' Outside-half Butch James said: 'The guys never ever want to go through what happened to them in Marseille again.' But somehow Paulse should have the final say before the Springboks, his Springboks, come to Twickenham. 'Watch us,' he said. 'In this team there is a lot of respect. Everyone has their say about the game plan. Because we are trying to do something special we might have to suffer the odd defeat. But we have a common goal now.' Gawd, in five years' time one of the oaks will probably publish a damning version of this tour, but for the moment, I can't help wishing the Springboks all the very best.
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