So long 'nearly' Naka

14 May 2015 - 02:06 By Archie Henderson

Naka Drotske is no superstar. Not my words, but those of Glenn Delaney, a teammate of Drotske when London Irish upset the odds in 2002 to win a trophy for which they had all but been written off. Delaney, a journeyman rugby player from Timaru, did not mean it as a slight, just a statement of fact. Drotske has never been a superstar and would never become one.He spent his career fighting for a chance to pivot a Springbok front row when the competition was red hot.It didn't take Allen Erasmus Drotske long to win his first Springbok cap. At 22, he started the second Test against Argentina, having only recently switched from flank - a position he played at school - to hooker. Later in that Test debut, he switched back to flank for a while when John Allan came off the bench. Another Bok debutant that November night in balmy Buenos Aires was Chester Williams.Unlike Williams, Drotske had to wait another 13 Tests and almost two years for his second cap, a single appearance in the 1995 World Cup in which he watched from the bench when the Boks beat the All Blacks in a final that, for a short time, drew us together as a nation.In those heady days James Dalton, John Allan and Chris Rossouw were ahead of him in the Bok pecking order.It took six years, an injury to Dalton and a superb Super 12 season for the Cats (that goulash of a team) for Drotske to get a regular starting role in the Bok front row.This included a second World Cup when he did not have to play a bit part. He started in four of the five matches up to the semifinal - a Stephen Larkham inspired drop-goal defeat by Australia - and in a fifth against the All Blacks in the third-place play-off. Even a victory over the ABs did not make up for missing out in 1995.So Delaney is right. No superstar, but, for many rugby people in this land, an institution.Drotske announced last week that he was standing down as Cheetahs coach, evoking an outpouring of grief and praise from all the usual quarters.It was not clear, however, whether the decision was his own or whether he was pushed - always a suspicion in such circumstances.If it's the latter, it would be a travesty. Drotske might always have been the nearly man of South African rugby, but there was no doubting his commitment, something Delaney was trying to emphasise in recalling how a team of ordinary guys from London Irish beat the superstars of Northampton in the 2002 Powergen Cup in England. Ordinary guys, perhaps, except for Brendan Venter, who was player-coach of The Exiles at the time and could never be described as ordinary.Put into a local context, it was like the Leopards beating Western Province in a Currie Cup final at Newlands.In the Currie Cup final of 2005, Drotske led Free State to victory over the Blue Bulls at Loftus. That was like, well, the Free State beating the Blue Bulls at Loftus.It was also Drotske's swansong as a player.Now we will no longer see him as a coach either.I, for one, will miss a face you would not play poker against, and his forthright opinions, usually explaining promise unfulfilled...

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