By CHRIS RATTUE
Paul Matete has one more mission left as coach of the South African rugby league side.
Then for Matete, a Kiwi in 1975, it might just be time to head back home to New Zealand and away from the violence of Johannesburg which saw him the victim of a car-hijack.
Matete is back in New Zealand on holiday, but also hoping to find some rugby league talent which qualifies to play for South Africa.
Besides next year's World Cup, the South African Rhinos will also play two tests against Cameron Bell's Maori side in the lead-up to the world event.
Matete went to South Africa nearly 10 years ago at the request of an Australian promotional company who were involved in getting a South African sevens team together for the world tournament.
Matete, who was divorced, married a South African woman and that, his rugby league mission, and job as a manager at a company which freights gold and diamonds, encouraged him to stay.
But he says that the violence in Johannesburg makes him look lovingly at his New Zealand passport.
A year ago, as he was getting something out of the boot of his car outside his in-laws' home, he was approached by a group of men who put a pistol to his head.
Matete was forced to lie on the ground as they took his valuables and the car.
"I am just glad to still be alive," he said. "All the other car-jacking stories in the paper that same week involved someone dying. That's what normally happens, and it happens all the time. The papers are full of stories.
"The car was only four days old, but who cares? It all happened in about 30 seconds but I just kept thinking 'I hope I survive this.'"
Which makes his efforts to try to get rugby league some sort of foothold in South Africa seem fairly tame, although that involved repeated visits to some fairly dangerous parts of town.
Rugby league, he said, lived in the very large shadow of rugby union which made things like getting sponsorship very difficult. The senior competition, spread between Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, is played after the rugby season finishes.
Former rugby supremo and fertiliser millionaire Louis Luyt appeared as a potential sugar-daddy for the sport after his rejection by rugby union. But the controversial Luyt is now reconsidering his involvement.
Matete did not coach South Africa at the last World Cup in 1995, partly because he was getting married at the time and he was also unhappy with the involvement of another Rhinos official.
South Africa have been grouped with Tonga, Papua New Guinea and France - where the Rhinos toured recently - in the tournament late next year.
"I have been a missionary for the game in South Africa and it has been an amazing experience," he said. "To be honest, most people in South Africa do not even know the game exists.
"But there have been achievements and there are places like East Rand [near Johannesburg] where we have got a good foothold. I was very happy with our recent performance against France when we actually led at halftime.
"I have one big mission left and that is to coach a team at the World Cup. Then it might be time to come home."
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