Will Regular Contact Tarnish South African Lustre?

TO US SCOTS the Springboks used to be, and in many ways still are – big scary beasties. OK, the South Africans may not be as intimidating as the All Blacks, whom we have never beaten, but in 27 meetings with the men from the southern tip of Africa, we have only won five games, to their 22 – not exactly uplifting.

The Bokke were as rarely seen as a Protestant in Croy (to borrow Jimmy Reid's great phrase). Between 1906, when we beat them at Hampden Park, and 1960, when we broke the touring mould with the first short tour, to South Africa, we had only played them four times, in 1906, 1912, 1932 and 1951 – when they absolutely thrashed us 44-0, a defeat it took us a long time to get over.

In the Sixties, we faced them four times, but, after the furore of the demonstrations against apartheid in 1969, the Bokke were all but shunned by the rest of the rugby world until 1994.

Since then, in the professional era we have locked horns with the Bokke 18 times, so, to some degree their aura of superiority has been dented, even though they still tend to beat us.

I wonder, however, how the South African aura of power and single-mindedness will survive the arrival of the four provincial teams into the newly-expanded United Rugby Championship?

Much, I suppose, will depend on how the fixtures pan out in the cross-conference games. In the PRO14, the protocol was for the two Scottish sides to travel to the Rainbow Nation, play two games, then come home, while the South African teams would come to the UK, play a block of games, then go home.

This pattern may be refined slightly, but, will still probably be how the logistics work in the URC. But, might we see Edinburgh and Glasgow keeping their big names at home, if the away games in South Africa fall close to Six Nations time?

Certainly, being exposed to South African play on a more regular basis should be good for our younger players and, if it helps us lift our wins percentage against the Springboks above the current 18.5%, I'd call that a win.

I THOUGHT the games in Week Two of the FOSROC Super6 were better than in the opening week. Yes, the perennial critics of S6 will doubtless be quoting the blessed Mandy Rice-Davis here, but, that's my view. For such a closely-contested level of rugby, it was good to see Southern Knights post a bonus points win over Heriot's in the live televised game on Sunday afternoon.

The production values of the coverage, however, were not up to scratch. I don't know if it was the camera position, or maybe having a director unfamiliar with covering rugby, but, while the rugby was good – the tv coverage was poor.

My theory is, it cost them so-much to pay the excellent Dougie Vipond to front the broadcast, they had not enough money left to uphold production values and sent a day release student to run things. FFS, the lip synch was way out when Dougie was speaking. Excellent work too by Scotland Sevens coach Ciaran Beattie in the difficult role of side-kick to commentator Stuart McFarlane.

I was at Millbrae on Saturday to see Ayrshire Bulls beat Boroughmuir Bears, by virtue of a storming first half, in terrible conditions of non-stop rain. Bulls might have won 24-10, but, the Bears did win the second half and I have a feeling, well though try-scoring replacement Trystan Andrews played, the early loss of the influential Rory Drummond with a hamstring injury – which prompted 'Muir president Stevie Douglas to say: “No, Rory doesn't have hamstrings, athletes have those,” helped tip the balance the home team's way.

One of the more-interesting aspects of the weekend games was the performances of a couple of callow number tens. Bulls' Christian Townsend was handed his first start, there is definitely an air of his distinguished father about him. He is a work-in-progress, being carefully mentored by Bulls' attack coach Peter Horne.

On Friday night at Myreside, Scottish-qualified, South African-bred Mark Morrison came off the bench for Watsonians and impressed. He looked like a young man who had maybe got mixed-up and should be playing for George Watson's College 1^st XV, but, his first instinct is to run the ball at every opportunity and I hope Fergus Pringle and the Watsonians coaching staff encourage him to do this.

Jason Baggot, another South African-reared Scot, is further along the career path, but, he gave a mature and composed performance for Southern Knights on Sunday, while in his cameo off the bench for the Nails, Nathan Chamberlain showed, we've got a few talented young tens coming through.

IT WAS good too, at the weekend, to see so-many clubs posting on Facebook and other social media outlets, pictures of the first pre-season warm-up games. Only 26 days until the big kick-off in the club leagues – on 4 September, and the return of ordinary club rugby. That ought to get the competitive juices flowing.

These have been a long, dark nearly 18 months, but, signs of normality are returning. Will it be too-much to hope, the worst is behind us?