Saru affair causes ruckus among rugby writers

When the 2005 All Blacks arrived in South Africa last week for the Tri-Nations Test at Newlands, they decided to stay in Durban.

It was said they avoided Cape Town because of the intensity of the media scrutiny in the Mother City.

As the Wallabies could have told them, this is true. A fracas in a Cape Town nightclub did not escape the attentions of the Cape Argus and the ramifications of that incident are still being felt at the highest levels of Australian rugby.

What the All Blacks could not foretell, however, was that the media scrutiny would focus on the Boks.

A letter from the Springbok coach that led to the resignation of the second most powerful man in South African rugby made the All Blacks' presence almost a sideshow - apart from their defeat, that is.

The manner in which the Andre Markgraaff/Jake White affair came about and dominated front pages must have been a source of some relief to the All Blacks.

Like any top international sports team, they are notoriously afraid of the "wrong" publicity. Which is why most top teams today employ spin doctors, as the British Lions did in New Zealand earlier this year when they signed Alistair Campbell, once a spinner in the Tony Blair XI.

In the case of Cape Town last week, the Markgraaff/White business took the heat off the All Blacks and this, in itself, caused a minor controversy in one of the esoteric circles of the game: the rugby-writing profession.

How the story was perceived in the Bok camp or in the corridors of South African rugby is hard to tell, but among the Fourth Estate it was quite revealing of how the rugby public is served by its media.

The bust-up between Markgraaff and White was not surprising. There had long been suspicions that all was not well between coach White and his nominal superior, Markgraaff, deputy president of the SA Rugby Union and chairman of the committee which oversees "rugby matters".

On the eve of the Test against France earlier this year in Port Elizabeth, Dale Granger, rugby writer of this newspaper, reported White's dissatisfaction.

The coach had even threatened to resign, Granger reported.

Even earlier, on the rugby website keo.co.za, its founder and main reporter, Mark Keohane, had revealed that Markgraaff and White had not had contact since the Super 12 - a strange situation for two people who were meant to be working together ahead of the test rugby season.

Then, last Thursday afternoon around lunchtime, the same website broke news of the White letter. Oddly, nothing appeared in the Friday morning newspapers.

Friday's Cape Argus was the first to publish the report, with Granger getting comment from Markgraaff, who first tried to play down the story then to suppress it until after the test.

On Friday evening the news radio stations around the country were on to the story and on the day of the Test match it was the front-page lead story for most newspapers.

By Saturday night, in the aftermath of a famous Springbok victory, Markgraaff resigned.

This sequence of events again confirmed the Cape Argus's leading role in breaking rugby news, along with the website, which has now become required reading for South African rugby fans.

Since its launch 18 months ago it has left other rugby websites in its wake. In July it had 1.2 million hits; between Monday and Friday last week 340 000 visited the site; and on Monday this week there were 76 000, the highest daily tally in its history.

Still the manner in which the Cape Argus and the website led the field in breaking the news was questioned by colleagues, who speculated that White and others were "leaking" stories to them.

Such criticism revealed much about the critics. It is now well known that Granger, having picked up on the White letter on Thursday, did some hard footwork to get his hands on a copy and to track down the often elusive Markgraaff for his reaction.

Any hardworking rugby reporter could have done the same.

For Granger, the snide criticism of colleagues was nothing new. In 2003, when he broke the story of the Geo Cronje racist incident in the Springbok camp, many of his fellow rugby scribes plainly refused to believe it.

In spite of two unsuccessful attempts by South African Rugby to sweep the matter under the carpet, Granger won an award for his report.

It was even alleged that Keohane - at the time the Bok team's spin doctor - had told Granger about the story. I worked closely with Granger on that story and can state categorically that Keohane was not our source. Not that it stopped some from persevering with this calumny.

It was the same when the Cape Argus broke the news of Kamp Staaldraad. The scepticism was later dispelled when the Cape Argus published the shocking pictures of naked Springboks in a pit at the alleged "bonding" exercise. Not all has yet been revealed about what went on at Kamp Staaldraad, but the South African rugby public may wait in vain if it hopes that reporting resources will be assigned to uncover the still-hidden facts.

Which brings us to last week's White letter.

Reporting on the outcome of the letter was revealing of how the rugby media can be open to manipulation. Markgraaff's resignation, in some quarters was portrayed as the outcome of a campaign to get rid of him.

No such thing existed except in the thinking of a man who was used to manipulating the media.

The Markgraaff story, like that of SA rugby, is far from over. Once the rugby writers had done with wringing their hands over his departure, they might try to challenge some of the myths around the man: Was he there for altruistic reasons (as he claims), or did he get paid by SA rugby?

It has been reported that he earned R500 000 a year. So much for doing it out of a love of the game.

There are also other issues around Markgraaff. Union president Brain van Rooyen's car is a matter which has not yet been fully explained and the shocking details of the boxing matches at Kamp Staaldraad remain well buried in the omerta of rugby.

There seems to be some good material for rugby reporters to get their teeth into.

Andy Colquhoun, probably the most respected rugby writer in South Africa, is one reporter in the Granger-Keohane mould. His probing of arcane issues in the game has often embarrassed rugby's officialdom.

He believes that most rugby writers know what's going on in the game, but see it differently.

"There's not a lot of analysis of matches and if that's missing then you won't get analysis on many other issues," he said.

He also says there is a Messiah complex in South African rugby where there is respect, often misplaced, for a powerful leader.

"Then it turns out these men - be it a Craven, Luyt or even a Silas Nkanunu - have feet of clay," says Colquhoun.

"No one questioned Brian van Rooyen's credentials when he became president. They were just happy to see him as the great saviour (after the departure of MD Rian Oberholzer and president Nkanunu)."

Colquhoun did not readily accept this and wrote about it in the Weekend Argus, not that it was widely followed up in the rugby press.

"There are so many agendas among the administrators that it would be naive to think there not any among rugby writers, whether these be for their particular markets, or just because of their own prejudices."

- Archie Henderson was, until recently, sports editor of the Cape Argus.