Marked out by one daft moment

About the only "person" who was happy to see Dewald Potgieter in Pretoria on Saturday night was his English bulldog Lady Zsa Zsa.

Lady Zsa Zsa - who is named after Lady Gaga and Zsa Zsa Gabor - would have dutifully licked her distraught master's hands when he came home after the Bulls' bizarre defeat to the Brumbies, a process the Bulls captain once likened to licking his wounds in his column.

The dog would have been blissfully unaware that most of Pretoria was keen to lynch the poor blighter, whose decision to spurn three out of four kicks at goal in the closing stages of the Super 15 semifinal against the Brumbies gave Loftus Versfeld a convenient scapegoat.

Visiting the incident without the emotion of willing the Bulls to win, the last 10 minutes of that game was some of the most fascinating stuff to play itself out at Loftus.

Nine times out of 10 the Bulls would have kicked for poles, but Potgieter being Potgieter went for the lineout three times in four.

The Bulls are past masters at closing down games by boring the opposition to tears, yet on Saturday they sought to close it out by opening things up (one try would have settled the game). But what most missed in the subsequent analysis of Loftus-gate was the man at the centre of it all. The thing about Potgieter is that he's different.

As someone who has ghost-written columns for sportsmen before, I appreciate the fact that he writes his own, and well. It emerges in the columns that he is well-read and loves his music.

Some might say the Bulls fraternity should have suspected that a player who idolised Kurt Cobain might have a suicidal streak.

But the glimpses he gave in his writing suggested he was a player who was interested in a bit more than just rugby and PlayStation.

Curiously, when it came to his play, he opted to be the ultimate team man instead of being true to his natural abilities. As a young eighthman who arrived at Loftus from the Eastern Cape, he was slight, quick and skilful.

But because a certain bludgeon named Pierre Spies also played No8, he had to take his chances at blindside or openside flank. With the Bulls insisting their blindside flankers take a lot of contact in carrying the ball, so began Potgieter's horrendous run of injuries.

Consequently, it was frustrating to watch a player who could be so much more dedicate his life to running into brick walls and writing himself off once every two games.

To the armchair psychologist, Saturday night looked like the result of a player who had decided to settle the game on his own terms. Potgieter strikes one as the sort who believes you only live once. Someone should have told him you also only die once.

Saturday night was one of those nights when he should have taken the low road to achieving what he wanted just so he could achieve it.

Also, Potgieter - not shirking the leading role in the whole fiasco - allowed a few others in the Bulls team to hide behind his coat tails. The rest of the Bulls played as if they desperately didn't want to get on the plane to Hamilton for the final, while their coaching team made substitutions by the numbers instead of taking heed of what was needed for the game. The pity of it all is one of the most intelligent players in this country will forever be remembered for one daft moment.