Rob Houwing’s ‘Tops on the Telly’ column

If defending champions South Africa generally earned very good marks once more in their point-a-minute Rugby World Cup disposal of Namibia, SABC2 came up trumps too in their presentation of this rare “derby” encounter.

I made a point of watching all of the build-up, the game itself and post-match analysis on the national broadcast channel and was pleasantly surprised.

I guess I am sometimes as guilty as many others who have access to SuperSport in instinctively taking that route during RWC 2011, given that they have all tournament games and the SABC only a certain (albeit still fairly generous) allocation – so in a near-reflex action I tend to just punch in “201” on the remote control and know there’ll be a game on.

But the SABC’s fare for the North Harbour meeting could not be quibbled with in any significant way … or so I thought, at least.

A Sport24 reader had indicated in a comments posting to this column last week that they’d been rolling out some impressively heavyweight studio panelists and so it proved again: previous Springbok RWC-winning heroes in Hennie le Roux and Os du Randt (twice in his case, of course) offered immediate credibility.

And the rest of the Auckland Park quartet on the day was made up of a bit of an ex-SuperSport firm in anchor Tony Ndoro, who has a relaxed and pleasant manner, and veteran rugby writer Dan Retief, who covered the infamous “demo tour” of New Zealand in 1981.

Former specialist newspaperman Retief has always been particularly good with his statistical knowledge, useful treasure chest of memories and diligent research.

The pure legend of Du Randt, who was also the Boks’ scrumming consultant until he left under a bit of a cloud not too long ago, means he will always be a sought-after pundit, whilst Le Roux tends not to pull punches and can pinpoint strong and weak areas in the Bok game-plan in a “no-waffle” sort of way.

SABC2 picked up the “international” commentary on the game itself, and it was interesting to hear Stu Wilson, the All Blacks wing of the 1970s and early 80s, hailing Morne Steyn’s “good all-round skills set” as well as offering more predictable praise for his place-kicking …
clearly not all New Zealanders view the Bulls pivot as a mere robot