If it's rugby season then it must be silly season. Claims on Sunday that Jake White was involved in the assault of a rugby journalist in a Sandton nightspot on Thursday night are wrong. I know. I was there.
On Friday night the journalist at the centre of the story, Adnaan Mohamed, who writes for Die Son, called me to tell me he knew White had nothing to do with the assault on him. "I know Jake didn't know that guy who punched me," said Mohamed. "I don't know why the guy hit me. I just wish this had never happened."
I had been with Mohamed at the News Cafe earlier in the evening. A group of rugby writers had been invited by Springbok team manager Zola Yeye to join him, Bok media liaison man Vusi Kama and team logistics manager Mac Hendricks for drinks at the News Cafe. About 10 journalists arrived around 6pm. When the Springbok management left at 8pm, five of us decided to have a few nightcaps.
I joined some friends on the other side of the bar, while the other journalists stood near the entrance. White walked in at about 9pm with a friend. According to the other journalists, White stopped to berate Mohamed for a story in the Free State edition of Die Son.
The story was a gossip piece with no facts (the introductory paragraph said that the story had been "heard around a campfire") that said Luke Watson had been forced to leave the Sharks because he had become "too close" to another player's wife. The implication was one of impropriety, which Watson and the other player have strongly denied. The Springboks were fiercely upset about the piece.
Mohamed had not written the article but White believed Mohamed was connected because it had appeared in the newspaper which employs him.
White then joined myself and friends for a drink. White was still upset about the story and walked over to press home the point to Mohamed. "Colin", who works in sports circles and is vaguely known by some sports journalists, joined our group uninvited. He introduced himself to White and settled in. White had an off-the-record chat with us, which, as these things do between rugby men, became emotional when talking about the current state of rugby in South Africa. About 11pm, White left when Springbok assistant coach Allister Coetzee and Bok fitness trainer Steve McIntyre came to collect him.
I left about 30 minutes later.
The next day, the story came back to me, via White, who had heard it from someone in Cape Town, who had been told by a friend who knew someone who had been in the bar, that White had walked into the News Cafe, with a bouncer in tow, in the mood for a fight. I was told that Mohamed had been punched by "Colin" in the toilets after he had asked him about White.
Remember the story of how Nick Mallett was lured into saying that the price of Test tickets was too expensive? Then, the SA Rugby bosses were looking for an excuse to fire Mallett because he had dared to stand up to them and, when he gave them a sniff, they were in. White has had his run-ins with his bosses, the latest over Luke Watson. Let us hope that his employers are not looking for a similarly tenuous reason to show him who is boss. With the World Cup just three months away it would be suicidal.