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Springbok Requiem

27th November, 2016
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South Africa's rugby union side. (Mike Egerton/PA via AP)
Expert
27th November, 2016
110
1652 Reads

We were never that clever.
But flip it, we were hard;
Brows beat, pupils dead dilated,
Rock-ribbed salt-scrubbed,
Anchor-armed and insentient,
Lawless vandals burning,
Prayers and plans useless
To stem the dark green tide.
The gold was there for accent.

Publish your paper on Friday,
And warn of Boks arriving,
Down Under or up there,
In drizzle or bone hard Salta,
Whether old or youngsters
Coached by wisdom or rage,
It was always the same:
“The Boks will Be Hard.”

We came low at you,
Fierce at your gut
Smashing at your ruck
Disintegrating your pack
And splintering your plot.

The passes spinning
To a faster and yet faster Bok
Until smoke and dust
Erupted in elated scores.

To pierce the Bok wall
And take a scalp home
You had to rip skin off sinew
And refuse to take breath.

Springboks Frans Malherbe, Bismarck Du Plessis and Tendai Mtawarira

Even our scrumhalves
Were hard buggers,
Wiry and quiet;
Sarcastic and fleet.

Our props were proper oxen,
Our hookers were battleships,
Our locks a tall nightmare,
Our flanks meaty menaces,
Our eighthmen, pure class.
Our backs relentless wolves,
Hoping to lap at your blood.

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Grapple with Boks at your peril.

But now, and even before,
The long hard road has
Been repaved, transformed
With pillows of politeness.

Cards in pockets,
Blood congealed,
Ferocity tamed in menageries of irony,
And leaders whose words
Don’t matter.

“Stick to our structures,
Execute more clinically,
Reduce our errors,
And transform.”

Always the word
“Transform.”

What form shall we take?
Whispery willow tree?
Snakes that slither?
Speed incarnate?

Once we were hard.
Harder than hard.

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Run on gravel
Tackle on dirt
Kick on streets
Tackle as if the carrier were invading our home
Come to take our sleeping children

But transform
We have been told
To a more tentative
Tremulous tenor;
Innocuous and saddened.
Chastened and fine.
Happy to comply
With the greater good.

Will we yet rise from this?
Can we form a lovely
Stew of speed and smarts,
Grit and rocks and precision?

Or is the end,
The beginning of the end,
The slide that slips into
That harshest of fates:
Mediocrity?

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