A month from now, Bafana will know if they have qualified for the Nations Cup, the Springboks may be competing in the semifinals of the Rugby World Cup and the Proteas would have played their first international in almost seven months.

It will be nothing more than a piddly T20 game, but far greater significance will be attached.

AB de Villiers will begin his tenure as limited-overs captain, World Cup-winning coach Gary Kirsten will be handed the reins of his home country and, aside from the two firsts, the season will start against Australia, whom South Africans want to beat even if they are only contesting a game of snakes and ladders.

The three-hour clash will be the curtain-raiser for two tough home series - first against a resurgent Australia and then against a simmering Sri Lanka.

With great expectations and the need to erase the choke in the World Cup quarterfinals, the Proteas should have been preparing painstakingly for the season.

But by the time they step onto the field on October13 they would have had only three days together. In theory, they cannot convene any earlier because the Champions League T20, which involves 13 South African players from the national squad, finishes on October 9. In practice, though, they have had six months to fit in a few weeks of intensive training.

Instead they got together only once in the off-season, for a four-day gathering at Arabella Golf Estate earlier this month. As the venue suggests, one of the days was reserved for golf and 40 past and present Proteas enjoyed a round.

Another day was spent visiting a poor school, not something to be scoffed at, which left two days for the camp.

The purpose of it was not about the specifics of the game and it was organised as a meet-and-greet session for the new coaching staff and a bloated 28-member squad. Kirsten and bowling coach Allan Donald have admitted to being unfamiliar with players on the local scene and the inclusion of Vaughn van Jaarsveld and Dean Elgar was a chance for them to peruse the menu of talent available countrywide and sample snack-sized portions of it.

It was a worthwhile exercise and an important introduction for current and hopeful national players to their new masters. Then it ended.

Rather than follow up the event with a week at the High Performance Centre, where Vincent Barnes and Corrie van Zyl have been toiling, the squad was sent home. Most of the players have reported favourably about their first camp, labelling it as laid-back and light-hearted, a welcome change from the pressure they normally face.

Here's hoping they didn't get used to that because, come October 13, that pressure will be back and they will have no excuses for not being prepared enough to handle it.