'Straeuli and Sam should resign now'

For the sake of Springbok rugby, Rudolf Straeuli and Gideon Sam should resign.

Neither the coach nor the manager are indispensable and their presence at the Rugby World Cup next month will serve only to keep a cloud over the Springbok team.

They should withdraw now if they are genuinely concerned about the team concentrating on winning the World Cup without distractions.

The two men are the most serious distractions.

Their apology on Wednesday night was unconvincing and grudging. It was nothing short of a cop-out.

Yet South Africa's rugby bosses scrambled eagerly to postpone the King probe into rugby racism.

The two men stopped short of revealing even why they were sorry. They were certainly not sorry for the possibility of racism in the team, only giving an assurance that they did not tolerate it.

Perhaps they were sorry they could not cover up the Geo Cronjé-Quinton Davids issue.

Last week one of their colleagues, Mark Keohane, felt so strongly about the suspicion of racism that he felt obliged to resign. Straeuli and Sam, it now appears, can live comfortably with such suspicions.

They could not even bring themselves to admit an error, only that they "might" have made one.

They have left us in no doubt that the real reason for their "apology" was to save their jobs. We do not need such uninspiring leadership in our national rugby team.

Their performance on Wednesday night, and the promptness of the SA Rugby Football Union to postpone the King probe, had a strong whiff of stage-management. Was some kind of deal struck? The impression left was: "Let's just get on with the rugby."

In a way we can sympathise. Many rugby-lovers would love it all to go away, but sweeping it under the carpet will not deal with it.

For the Boks to proceed to the World Cup without lugging along any baggage from this controversy, some of it has to be ditched.

The departure of Straeuli and Sam would lighten the load and enable the entire country, not just a small part of it, to throw its weight behind the team.

There is no shortage of candidates to replace them. We would respectfully offer two: Chester Williams and Morné du Plessis.

Williams, a highly respected black Springbok who has successfully coached the national sevens rugby team, is ideal.

Du Plessis, an inspiring manager of the team that won the World Cup in 1995, is eminently suited to take the helm as manager.