South Africa coach Vaughn Harman Marlow (third from right) gives instructions to his players during the match against Spain at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka. Picture: EPA-EFE/Kiyoshi Ota
As much as we like to celebrate sport as a unifying pursuit, it’s difficult to show much support for South African teams that not only fail to perform but don’t show any real improvement.
At the World Aquatics Championships which started in Fukuoka last week, the SA men’s water polo team lost all three their pool stage matches — 35-10 to Montenegro, 30-5 to Serbia and 27-6 to Spain, and ended up bottom of their group with a goal difference of -71.
And while the SA women’s team earned a 12-9 victory over Argentina to finish third in their pool, they missed out on a place in the quarter-finals following defeats against Greece (24-2) and Italy (24-2).
Unfortunately, this poor showing is relatively standard in terms of the water polo squad’s performances.
In all their previous appearances at the World Championships, the national men’s and women’s sides played a combined 93 matches since 1994, winning only 10 games between them.
Some other national teams have also struggled for support in recent years, but in order to rake in the resources required to develop smaller codes, there needs to be some real effort to show there is a desire to improve.
Granted, they have financial constraints and it’s not easy, but others (such as the SA men’s hockey side) have proved success is possible with limited resources.
Until the national water polo teams show similar ability to put up a fight, it’s difficult to get behind them. They need to find a way to earn our support.
One organisation that doesn’t need our support is Safa, the South African Football Association!
Heck, the issue around bonuses for staff and players was still simmering this week, days before Banyana Banyana play their opening game at the Fifa Women’s World Cup, on Sunday.
It is crazy to think our very good national women’s football team have to deal with these sorts of issues at this stage. How these matters were not resolved months ago is beyond me.
We can only hope that our women’s footballers are able to put the money matters behind them, focus on the game and produce some quality football because they’re going to need it over the coming weeks. They’re up against Sweden, Argentina and Italy in their pool matches in New Zealand, which won’t be easy.
But, before I let this issue go this week, am I the only one who feels there has been no hype around Banyana Banyana playing at the World Cup?
I’ve seen very little in way of a big send-off, campaigns around supporting the team, like Banyana Fridays where fans are encouraged to wear supporters shirts and jerseys. It’s just been so quiet. Again, what has Safa truly done to support our women’s team?
Finally, our Boks! Yes, I know they came back strongly after a poor start against the All Blacks last weekend in Auckland, but my word, where were they in the opening half hour? Nowhere!
So much was made of sending a big group of players to New Zealand early to acclimatise and so on and then they go and start like that, being 17-0 down before you’ve had time to settle after the Haka.
No man Boks, that’s not good enough, rusty or not! You can’t give your biggest opponents such an early advantage and think you’ll come back and win. Hopefully the bosses took some learnings from the game because I can tell you now selection is going to be key in France at this year’s World Cup.
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