Victor Matfield (above) and others were persuaded by coach Heyneke Meyer to come out of retirement. Photo / NZME
"Sport has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It is more powerful than Governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination. Sport is the game of lovers."
Nelson Mandela's beautiful, poignant words appear misguided and hopelessly naive in light of the attacks on the racial make-up of the South Africa rugby team this past month.
The Springbok jersey that Mandela wore to unite a nation 20 years ago is being burned in the streets while the Agency for New Agenda, a fringe political party, applied for a court order to stop the team competing at the World Cup on the basis that the squad were too white.
That application was rejected at the High Court in Pretoria, meaning South Africa, the third favourites, will board a plane, as planned.
But their preparations on and off the field have been far from ideal. Whatever the concerns over England's faltering lineouts or Wales' depth in the front row, they pale in significance to what Bok coach Heyneke Meyer has had to contend with.
The troubles began, as they often do, with a poor sequence of results. After losing against Ireland and Wales last autumn, the injury-ravaged Boks lost all three matches in the Rugby Championship, including at home against Argentina. That 37-25 defeat, in which two black players started and a further three came off the bench, was the spark that lit the fire.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) called for Meyer's sacking and called him racist for his team selections. It said five black players, backed by two white teammates, had claimed they were being left out of the team because of their skin colour. These accusations were strenuously denied by Meyer.
"I don't look at colour, I look at the best players. I'm committed to transformation and I have a great relationship with my players."
An already delicate situation was made worse by the intervention of Peter De Villiers, the Springboks' first black coach. In a newspaper column, he wrote: "In the lead-up to the Durban test, when Meyer had to choose between [Jesse] Kriel and the fit-again Jean de Villiers, he duly dropped a player of colour on the wing [Cornal Hendricks] to accommodate the former. That decision took the country back to the late 80s, when blacks supported the opposing teams because of apartheid."
Yet in his four years as Springbok coach between 2007 and 2011, De Villiers capped fewer black players than predecessor Jake White did in the same period (12 v 15).
All too frequently Meyer is in a no-win situation. Last year, he was accused of reverse discrimination for selecting Oupa Mohoje ahead of Schalk Burger. If Meyer has a fault as a selector it's placing too much faith in the old guard, having persuaded Victor Matfield and others to come out of retirement. Given that experience tends to win out over youth in World Cups, it is an understandable bias.
Still, Meyer shocked even his staunchest critics by selecting nine non-white players in his World Cup squad - Tendai Mtawarira, Trevor Nyakane, Siya Kolisi, Zane Kirchner, JP Pietersen, Bryan Habana, Lwazi Mvovo, Damian de Allende and Rudy Paige. This met the target of 30 per cent the South African Rugby Union had set for this year's World Cup and met the qualified approval of Cosatu.
"This is the most representative team that has ever been selected.
Cosatu claims this as a victory for workers and a victory for transformation in rugby in South Africa ... We remain concerned about the white players who are in the team."
Meyer said his hand was not forced but several marginal calls went to the black player. Paige, an uncapped halfback, was selected ahead of Cobus Reinach, who had played every match this year. In many ways it is depressing such labels have to be applied.
Concerns about the pace of change in South Africa are legitimate. In a nation where the whites represent about one in 10 of the population, everybody agrees a higher proportion of the Boks should be black or "coloured" in the long term. To that end the South African Rugby Union unveiled a plan in February that says black players should make up 50 per cent of national and provincial sides by 2019. Progress is being made - 84 per cent of the country's under-18s are black - but it is too slow for some.
The judge in the ANA case, while dismissing the application to strip the team of their passports, still criticised the Boks. "It can't be that in 21 years transformation is moving at a snail pace. Not just in sport but in general."
That is the point. The wider frustration felt at the pace of change is too often directed at the Springboks as the emblem of Afrikaner pride.
Just as that handshake between Mandela and Francois Pienaar did not cure the country of all racial tension in 1995, nor can Meyer's team selection solve society's ills today.
It is the million-dollar question. In 2015 is Fourie du Preez still the match-winner that guided the Boks to the 2007 Rugby World Cup and the Bulls to three Super Rugby titles?
Du Preez himself thinks so, and Heyneke Meyer is certainly of that belief, and the coach's dogged loyalty to the publicity-shy 33-year-old has to be admired. Nobody knows Du Preez better than the man who coached him at the Bulls for a decade, and Meyer won't budge on the Du Preez issue.
Du Preez, a halfback who has barely played in the past year because of injury and is barely known to younger South African fans, will be the general to guide the Boks in England, rendering the five-eighths question of secondary importance.
And the No 10 question has been itself keenly debated since last November, when Handre Pollard was the starting five-eighths against Ireland in Dublin, but Patrick Lambie the incumbent in the position when the tour ended.
That switched around in the Rugby Championship, perhaps due to Lambie being injured for almost all of Super Rugby and Pollard playing some fine matches for the Bulls, notably when the Sharks were defeated at Loftus in the second round, the game before Lambie suffered a neck vertebrae injury.
Without taking anything away from Pollard and Lambie, the way Meyer sees it, Fourie is key, and was a chief reason for the Boks winning the World Cup back in 2007.
It should be remembered that Andre Pretorius was the No 1 choice flyhalf when the squad arrived in France but managed to play his way out of the role in the Pool games, especially after a shocker against Tonga, and it was Butch James that came in as the starting flyhalf.
James, cool and unflustered, was the perfect supporting act for Du Preez, who marshalled the Boks' game plan and oversaw them to the title. Du Preez called the shots, and James calmly did what he was told.
Du Preez was similarly influential in the Bulls ' three Super Rugby title triumphs, and Meyer is convinced the 70-cap veteran can orchestrate one more title triumph.
But is he still the same player? We do not know because he has been based in Japan for the past four years, but Du Preez reckons the high-paced Japanese game has made him a better player.
Du Preez is reported to have said that he would not have made himself available to Meyer if he did not believe he was still the best scrumhalf in South Africa, and could do the same job he did in 2007.
In 2011, he was powerless in a quarter-final fiasco in Wellington where referee Bryce Lawrence did not police the breakdowns and rendered Du Preez powerless to influence the game.
Pollard, the prodigy, is likely to partner Du Preez in the ideal starting line-up.
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