It was The Selectors on the phone. They wanted to know if I still had contact with Freek Saunders, owner of the Ventersklip Private Zoo. Readers might recall the name – he owns Smiler, the semi-tame, 400kg gorilla that he trained to play rugby.
When I say “semi-tame”, I mean the gorilla’s discipline during games was about on a par with the All Blacks.
Some readers might recall how Freek tried Smiler out in 1996 when the Ventersklip Witrenosters agreed, as an experiment, to slip him into their team for their annual needle match against the Lichtenburg Wild Bulls.
The Witrenosters knew, heavy though their pack was, that they’d need a bit more weight if they were to succeed against the Bulls.
And, anyway, the Bulls themselves had few scruples. They once fielded a thinly disguised Massey Ferguson tractor on their side. After the match in which Smiler featured, many said that, from a sportsmanship point of view, it was not one of rugby’s nobler moments.
The final score, 378 – 0, and two dead, is still talked about.
Smiler’s main advantage is that he is good at tackling – he does it with one hand while he uses the other to tear the ball away. Sometimes hre tears away far more than that.
Provided that Smiler wears rugby togs, few people notice anything odd when he runs onto the field.
The long and short of it is that I was able to help The Selectors and, Smiler is now training with the Springoks.
But some people are worried. While the French might not notice gorillas in their midst, the English probably would. The Australians too. For this reason The Selectors might hold Smiler back until the Boks meet the All Blacks again.
It is true that when, in the Witrenosters game, Smiler ran out onto the field, some of the opposing side looked at him sideways. This was not so much because of his hair or absence of neck, nor was it because of his practically audible smell – it was because of the way in which Smiler stopped to scratch himself and for how long and where.
Freek directs Smiler from the touchline with a series of whistles, and in the loose scrum he has got Smiler to push the other side back 60m with team mates clinging to him.
Once, when a ref dared to show him a red card, he ate it.
The Witrenosters v Bulls went into two hours of injury time and the final movement was when Freek whistled to Smiler to “get ball”. Unfortunately it was just at the moment when the ball had been intercepted by the Witrenoster’s own captain, so Smiler took his own captain’s head off, tucked it under his arm, dropped onto his knuckles and went for the try line.
Fans on both sides now had reason to cheer him on although the captain’s wife was concerned that this might be a career-limiting injury for her husband.
Smiler touched down with the head, but the ref ruled against it – at least until Smiler menacingly moved towards him, beating his chest. Then he allowed it.
One of the worries The Selectors have is that for the first time in history a country will be fielding
a team weighing well over a ton and this might raise suspicions.
Footnote: Happily, the captain, after a transplant operation involving a pumpkin, was able to pursue a career in Parliament.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: All Blacks, rugby humour, stoep talk
