Western Province's Currie Cup coach John Dobson has seen the best and the worst of hooker Bongi Mbonambi.
However, nothing prepared him for the sight that greeted him after the Springbok hooker had recovered from appendicitis.
Mbonambi took part in one Super Rugby match before a bust appendix curtailed his participation. On March 6, a Stormers press release stated Mbonambi had two abdominal surgeries and would only be fully fit to train in three months.
On May 18 he featured for Western Province in a Rugby Challenge match and came off the bench for the Stormers against the Lions a week later.
"People don't appreciate how serious the appendicitis matter was. I saw him about four weeks after the operation and he didn't look like a professional rugby player. He'd lost so much weight because of the nature of what had happened to him. He didn't look like a rugby player and for him to rebuild his body in such a short space of time is a remarkable achievement. It shows what kind of a warrior he is," Dobson said."If you told me two months ago that Mbonambi was going to go from his condition to excelling at test rugby, I would've said it's physically impossible. The strength was there but not the physicality.
"If you know Bongi, he's quite a scary individual. At training we often tell him to go easy or he'll hurt himself or break the other players. In a nice way, he's got a desperation to succeed and, funny enough, he treats his body well in terms of nutrition and badly in terms of how hard he plays."
The South African rugby public was justifiably worried when Malcolm Marx injured his groin against the Hurricanes in Wellington on May 5.
That was just over a month before Johan "Rassie" Erasmus's first test in charge of the Boks and at the time, pulses were racing
The 27-year-old from Bethlehem is working his way back to fitness. Western Province and Springbok hooker Hanyani Shimange hasn't lost faith in Mbonambi's ability."The one thing Bongi doesn't compromise on is fitness and I couldn't understand when people were questioning his fitness. When you're fit, you can play. He wasn't given much of a chance when Adriaan Strauss was captain in his debut season in 2016 and the next season, Marx came in ahead of him. All Mbonambi needed was a gap and he's taken it very well," Shimange said.
"Bongi works too hard as an athlete and a rugby player not to make it. There probably would have been frustrations at not getting opportunities. I guess the intangible part that people don't know about Bongi is that he looks after the pack through his adherence to basics and competitiveness."
The search for better opportunities saw Mbonambi move from the Bulls to the Western Cape in 2015.
The former South African Schools and South African Under-20 player comes from the same primary school (Truida Kestell) as powerhouse hooker Bismarck du Plessis.The Bethlehem Voortrekker and St Alban's product made his presence felt in the Cape. Multiple injuries to Siyabonga "Scarra" Ntubeni and Tiaan Liebenberg's exit also aided his cause while not detracting from his qualities.
It would be easy to say Mbonambi is a beneficiary of transformation, but that would be soiling the efforts of the likes of Siya Kolisi, Aphiwe Dyantyi, S'busiso Nkosi and the other black Springbok players who've sparkled in the dawn of Erasmus's tenure.
They have all played a key role in the test wins in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein despite the sluggish starts in both games.
Shimange said transformation needs to be viewed from a positive prism as it allows the cream to rise to the top.
"The one thing that Rassie said was that he wasn't going to shy away from transformation. That was something the previous coaches did.
Transformation isn't difficult. You just need to give the guys an opportunity to play. He's picked the best team, with or without transformation.
Where Rassie has been good is that he gave the players an opportunity. He's not sugar-coating stuff and he's talking about it, unlike some previous regimes that have shied away from it," Shimange said...