SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS

Iain Morrison: Everybody needs good neighbours, and all-conquering South Africans owe a large debt of gratitude to Zimbabwe



Published Date: 20 September 2009
By Iain Morrison
ONLY LAST weekend the Springboks had recently been walloped by the Wallabies in Brisbane and they needed a rare win in New Zealand to secure their first Tri-Nations victory since 2004. It was an emotional night in Hamilton as the Boks squeezed home by three points after Springbok legend Bobby Skinstad had handed out those famous green and gold jerseys to the players before the match.

ONLY LAST weekend the Springboks had recently been walloped by the Wallabies in Brisbane and they needed a rare win in New Zealand to secure their first Tri-Nations victory since 2004. It was an emotional night in Hamilton as the Boks squeezed home by three points after Springbok legend Bobby Skinstad had handed out those famous green and gold jerseys to the players before the match.

The former Boks skipper is a pin-up boy for a generation of rugby-mad South African fans, many of whom probably don't realise that the great No.8, a member of Jake White's World Cup winning squad just two years back, was not born a South African but instead qualified on residency grounds.

Skinstad was born in Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe then was) but then so too was the man that he controversially replaced for the 1999 World Cup, Gary Teichmann, another former South African skipper who led them to a world record 17 consecutive wins. In fact its northern neighbour has always made a sizeable contribution to South African rugby but rarely has it had more influence right across the global game with any number of players fleeing the Mugabe led-regime. Zimbabwe competed in the first two World Cups but now the county lies a lowly 46th in the world rankings. Political turmoil at home has benefited numerous foreign teams as talented Zimbabwean players look elsewhere for a stage upon which to perform.

Like the giant Adrian Garvie before them, two of the Springbok's current props, Tendai "the Beast" Mtawarira, pictured, and Brian Mujati, now signed for Northampton, both hail from Zimbabwe and the pair of them even schooled together at Peterhouse for a while. The Beast represented Zimbabwe at U19 age group level before taking the well-trodden path to the south.

But it is not just the Springboks that have benefited from the exodus of top class players. The USA Eagles scored arguably the best try of the 2007 World Cup when the Zimbabwean-born flyer Tadudzwa Ngwenya (thankfully known as "Z") did what no man thought possible and left Bryan Habana for dead to finish off a length-of-the-field try against the Springboks. Ngwenga is now the "Z" in Biarritz, playing in France's Top 14.

But even "Z" is not the fastest winger to speed out of Zim. Tonderai Chevhanga holds the record for the number of tries scored by a Springbok in one Test match and, having stopped the clock at 10.27 over 100 metres, it's easy to understand why. When South Africa thumped Uruguay by a whopping 134-3, the Zimbabwean-born speedster collected six touchdowns which remain his only scores over the course of a four-cap career. Check out YouTube for Super 14 footage of Chevanga going away from the All Blacks very own Fijian flyer Sitiveni Sivivatu who simply gives up the chase to save himself from any further embarrassment.

Another Zimbabwean exile is probably the best fly-half you have never heard of. Kennedy Tsimba played for Bath for a short time but his real success was with the Cheetahs in the early years of this decade. He won the South African Currie Cup Player of the Year Award in 2002 after racking up a record total of 228 points for the season. Only last year, at the age of 34, he won the Division One Player of the Year Award after lifting the Griffons to the top of the table. Tsimba's six Tests for Zimbabwe from 199-8 prevented him from ever turning out for the Springboks.

Further afield Andy Marinos (born in Harare) won eight Welsh caps in 2002-3 and George Gregan's mother was Zimbabwean (although he was born in Zambia). Another Wallaby, George Smith, was recently ousted from his favourite No.7 shirt by youngster David Pocock who was also born in Zimbabwe. He grew up on a farm and, with the political situation so unstable, he reminisces now about falling asleep with a gun under his bed. Pocock is just one of a number of outstanding young Australian players who Robbie Deans is shaping into World Cup contenders and the boy from Zimbabwe is already being touted as a future Wallaby skipper.

When Australia pitch up to Murrayfield in November there is even a chance that Pocock may come up against a fellow countryman in the shape of Scotland's own Scott Gray, who was born in Zimbabwe before moving to Australia at the age of 18.

Gray is not the only Zimbabwean player to show up in these parts with a long lost relative. At the turn of the millennium the mobile prop Paul Johnstone won eight Scotland A caps and, just to bring things right up to date, yesterday afternoon his fellow countryman and Scottish Academy player David Denton played in the Edinburgh Accies backrow. Meanwhile a veteran of the Scottish club scene, Glasgow Hawks Ian Noble, boasts six Zimbabwean caps. And one final Scottish star is eligible to play for Zimbabwe, or at least he would be if he hadn't already been capped for this country. Thom Evans was born in Harare and could have turned out for the "Sables" had things panned out differently.

They are now dispersed to all four corners of the globe but had Zimbabwe's many players stuck with the country of their birth, the "Sables" would be aiming for their third World Cup appearance although is difficult to know where Evans would have fitted in. Zimbabwe may be the only country in world rugby to consider the Glasgow flyer a little one paced.

This article was posted on 20-Sep-2009, 06:50 by Hugh Barrow.