Positive thinking if put into perspective is one thing because each and every elite athlete enters the field of play having “visualised” their success, doing everything possible to convince themselves that they have the required power to come out unscathed from contests.
However, mind games can be a little more proactive than this if an element of doubt can be planted in the mind of your competitor that would undermine your overall performance – causing them to falter at the most critical moment.
Effectively, these kinds of tactics are likely to destroy athletes’ levels of confidence leading to impatience and imprecision, so to speak.
Mind games disapprove the out-dated adage; “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me”. ‘Ayekako my broer’, words if applied offensively can be dangerously devastating.
Yours truly has deliberately chosen the above preamble in a bid to interrogate our national rugby team, the Welwitschias’ failure to make a significant impact in the South African Provincial Currie Cup that has seen the clearly out-of-sorts Namibian amateurs made to run like headless chickens in South Africa’s third-tier rugby competition, nogal.
My dear readers, as a confirmed individual and bona fide Namibian, please allow me to assess and interrogate our team’s hopelessly lukewarm showing in the Currie Cup.
Back in the day, former rugby icons Andre Stoop, Gerhard Mans, Willem Maritz, Arra van der Merwe, Shaun McCally and pocket-size scrumhalf Bassie Buitenbag under the shrewd stewardship of Oom Henning Snyman, made the Doubting Thomasses seat and eat humble pie with breath-taking performance yet to be repeated in our neck of the woods.
To be precise, that was the elite Currie Cup competition laden with top rugby playing provinces from across the Orange River.
And who would ever forget that memorable rainy Saturday afternoon when the Andre Stoop-inspired South West Africa (SWA) amateurs defeated the Western Province hands down in their own backyard, the Newlands Stadium.
NRU’s decision to field an under-strength team in this year’s Currie Cup is totally out of touch with the reality of provincial rugby, as it has psychologically instilled fear and a certain measure of inferiority complex into the mentality of the squad members.
How do we expect athletes to perform with such a skewed mandate not to go out and compete aggressively, try to win matches but merely go out there to learn and apparently gain experience in a highly competitive environment? I am just asking.
The current members in Welwitschias squad are made to feel like second-class citizens, as can be attested by the NRU half-hearted approach towards this august tourney.
It does not convince yours truly at all, neither does it enjoy the confidence of those in the know that the powers that be at Lichtenstein Strasse are taking this competition seriously. This is exactly what happens when corners are cut.
NAPFU Congress above one’s head
So, the grapevine has it that the self-proclaimed Messiah of domestic football, the Namibia Football Players Union (NAFPU) is to hold its long-overdue congress this weekend. It is said the union will select a new executive to replace the interim committee but alas, who is fooling who here?
The secretive manner in which this gathering has been arranged has alerted my somewhat oversized nostrils to smell a rat given that only affiliate members of the union are ostensibly the only candidates eligible for election, really?
Now, the fundamental question that needs to be seriously addressed is: who are these eligible union members, is it the players? – Hopefully not.
My dear readers, this is the very same organisation advocating for transparency and fairness boastfully claiming to have footballers’ plight at heart.
Those at the helm of this union have made it their sole province to create a castle for themselves and stay put to the extent that whenever questions over the union’s modus operandi are raised, they are quick out of the block to jump to the defence of the union’s current setup.
This is a public institution and the masses out there have the right to know who are the candidates, who nominated and seconded them as well as the applied criteria towards the composition of the chosen candidates.
In conclusion, yours truly is damn sure many of you would scorn to own me in a lie if I dare predict that we are unlikely to see any significant changes to the current setup in the conspicuous absence of transparency and fairness.
The congress is just a hoodwink to rubber-stamp the interim executive. I rest my case.