Bok on Bok, while Boks play ex Boks side?

South Africa is really quite a virile rugby playing nation.

We have spread our rugby spawn everywhere, well, certainly in those places that count in rugby.

More importantly, it shows how superior South Africa’s strategy of “naaiamama” is to that of the New Zealand’s “whakapapa”. At Newlands, we have Peter de Villiers’ Springbok team playing Nick Mallett’s Italian Azzurri team with a South African Carlo del Fava (ex Umtata), and an Erasmus scrumming down for him. At the same time in France, we have the Springbok Captain John Smit, with ex Bok team mate, but now Clermont team mate, Marius Joubert, playing against current Springbok, Percy Montgomery, who plays for Perpignan, in a French Top 14 semifinal in Marseille.

Smit will have to make the final next Saturday, after Clermont won 21-7 in front of a crowd of 55,000 and then he will be off to Wellington New Zealand, leaving behind Marius Joubert, to rejoin Montgomery to play for the Springboks against the All Blacks, on Saturday the 5th July.

How confusing is all this for the players? Let alone the fans? What jersey do we pack for this weekends game?

The Springboks Touring side will be announced Monday the 23rd and then shortly leaves down under for New Zealand. Italy, for Buenos Aires and in the next few days we will be subjected to an enormous amount of international rugby fixtures, from the Top 14 final in France, this Saturday, to the “Rugby World Cup Final Clash” that never was, of the worlds two top teams, with exhaustive pre and post match analysis, interviews and results that will be like trying to take a drink from a firehose.

There is a monster coming.