Doing what it takes to get results

I didn’t enjoy the 2023 Rugby World Cup final. Not even when the final whistle blew, and our National Team won an unprecedented 4^th Webb Ellis trophy. It seemed to me as if we had not won but failed to lose.

The All Blacks as well as the French played far more enterprising and attractive rugby. A dodgy call or a bounce of the ball could have ejected the Boks in the Quarterfinals. The silly draw, interminable TMO decisions, and the weakness of the field I will not dwell on. That is the same for everyone.

In the weeks since the final and the messy street parades, I have contemplated my quandary. I love rugby. I loved playing it and love going to the Emirates Stadium to see the Lions lose. So why did I feel defeated in our moment of glory? I think it is because the Boks had finally pushed the game beyond sport irrevocably into commercialism.

We had always known that Rassie Erasmus was a great player, who became a great coach, and an audacious innovator. No one has disrupted the game as much as he has. You know you’re good when they want to change the rules to try and stop you, as was the case with his Bomb squad strategy, which has now become the norm.

But who is Jacques Nienaber? From the beginning, I was suspicious. Coaches are supposed to be ex-rugby players who utter truisms such as “We need to play in the right areas of the field”. So, who was this physiotherapist, coming along to coach the Boks?

In an earlier blog post I wrote about a curtain rod maker named Gaston Glock disrupted the handgun industry. Perhaps a physiotherapist’s different view of rugby was needed to push the game to the next level. Oprah said, “Do what you can with what you have where you are” (or perhaps it was Teddy Roosevelt, I often get them mixed up). This is what the Nienaber-Rassie combo did. They knew what they had to achieve –  Win the World Cup and reap the financial benefits, not entertain Eddie Jones for 80 minutes.] And they made it happen within the rules and with the assets at their disposal. Rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen, and if that means becoming the biggest hooligan, then well done. Business is business.

In the South African renewable energy sector, we cannot allow so-called disadvantages and government lassitude to hold us back. We need people to challenge the status quo by disrupting it. We need people who didn’t come through the ranks. We need people who have unrelated backgrounds who don’t know how you are supposed to act in the energy sector. And we need people who know how to play in the right areas of the field.