Gainsford is a true role model

David Isaacson:Analysing sports statistics is a wonderful pastime, but be warned - they don't always mean what they seem to say.

Prime example: the Springboks went into Saturday's Test against the Wallabies with the most experienced team in South African rugby history.

Their 750 combined caps supposedly meant they were ordained to win, but perhaps it served as a warning that some players were beyond their sell-by dates.

Compare this with the Bok team of 1949 which beat New Zealand 15-11 in the opening Test of their four-match series at Newlands. How many caps did South Africa boast then? Not one.

Admittedly, the Boks hadn't played Test rugby since 1938, international schedules having been cancelled by the Second World War. Even so, that team included three players who went on to become all-time greats - eighthman Hennie Muller, flyhalf Hansie Brewis and centre Tjol Lategan.

By the end of the series, props Chris Koch and Okey Geffen, flanker Basil Kenyon and centre Ryk van Schoor had joined the team. Together they formed the core of the legendary side that went unbeaten on their tour of Britain and France in 1951/52.

Cricket is riddled with statistics, but who cares about numbers when you have memories of Herschelle Gibbs's match-winning 175 against Australia in the 438 match?

Who will talk about Gibbs as South Africa's second-highest ODI run-scorer (behind Jacques Kallis) when one can discuss his role in the match-fixing scandal of 2000, his dagga-smoking saga on the 2001 tour of West Indies and his dropped catch of Steve Waugh that possibly cost the Proteas the 1999 World Cup?

One statistic that would be fascinating - but impossible to quantify - is that of sportsmen who've failed to fulfil their potential, bombing out prematurely under the influence of alcohol, nicotine and drugs.

Wayne Rooney seems to be travelling this road.

A month ago he reportedly smoked and urinated in public at 5.30am after leaving a pub.

Last weekend reports emerged that he had cheated on celebrity wife Coleen, pregnant at the time, with a prostitute. And when Rooney learnt that a newspaper was running the story, he allegedly informed his dearly beloved by SMS rather than in person.

We're all human and make mistakes, but Rooney - whether he likes it or not - is a role model. It comes with the skill that also earns him pots of money.

Contrast his behaviour to that of John Gainsford, a legendary Springbok centre some 50 years ago.

Walking home after a club match one Saturday in 1958 he was stopped by a Malay man who asked the player to visit his parents' home to meet his ailing father, an ardent rugby fan, who was no longer able to get to the weekly Newlands games.

Gainsford agreed and a week later he met the man and followed him to the house. "When I arrived there I was treated like some visiting potentate," Gainsford recalled in a book published to commemorate the 1975 centenary of the Villagers rugby club, for whom he played. "And a great smile came over the face of the old man who, I could see, was very sick." Gainsford and the old man discussed rugby heroes, past and present, comparing them man-for-man.

Gainsford was once the top try-scorer of Bok rugby, but you can bet this statistic was not the reason the old man and his family would have fondly remembered him.