South African Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins wasted no time in endorsing the ANC's call for the Springbok emblem issue to be properly debated - and in so doing he used words which should perhaps be noted by the polarised factions who have been waging war with each other.
"In my personal view," said Hoskins, before starting to explain his impression that the leaping antelope emblem, instead of being a vehicle for divisiveness, was actually a unifying symbol.
By acknowledging that his was a "personal view", he was tacitly admitting that there are other views.
This was an improvement on the offerings from other role-players in this drama, with one side coming out with the ridiculous comparison of the Springbok emblem to the swastika, and the other side responding with assumptions and counter-arguments that were as naive and extreme.
What has been missing from the debate is perspective, the middle road that is needed if a solution to a problem that will soon be two decades old will ever be found.
For if you look at the arguments, and rid them of hubris, neither side is completely wrong or completely right.
For a start, the rugby traditionalists who are so incensed about the possibility that the Bok emblem might go would do well to ask why it was that theirs was the only sport that did not drop the Bok and adopt the King Protea at the time of unity in the early 1990s.
When Clive Rice's South African team went to India on the first post-isolation cricket tour in 1991, they were not known as Springboks, and neither was the Olympic team that went to Barcelona in 1992. The rugby tour to France and England in that same year was however undertaken by a team known as the Springboks.
So what made rugby special, apart from the fact that it was seen as the sport of the former ruling class, and the inherent sensitivities made this a bigger hot potato for those who were negotiating the new dispensation?
It will be recalled that even back then there were huge political debates around rugby, and the attitudes of some of the people who were running the game.
An example was the then Transvaal president Louis Luyt's decision to permit the playing of Die Stem at the 1992 Ellis Park test against the All Blacks, something that the ANC had specifically asked not to happen.
The bullish Luyt continued in the same vein when he became Sarfu president, and his lack of political correctness was eventually to cost him his position after he took the nation's president, Nelson Mandela, to court.
Mandela, together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, can be regarded as the main reason that the Springbok emblem has survived until now amidst several attempts by national political sports bodies to have it removed as per a promise made before the 1995 World Cup.
Those who argue that by wearing Francois Pienaar's No6 jersey to the 1995 World Cup final, Mandela set the Springbok on a new course as a unifying symbol need to ask whether rugby has kept its side of the deal.
For while the One Team, One Country theme had a lot of clout in 1995, the rugby administration dropped the ball just a year later when they hung the respected former Springbok captain and manager Morne du Plessis out to dry over the issue of fans waving the old national flag.
To refresh memories, Du Plessis made a unilateral decision after a test match in Bloemfontein to condemn, on behalf of the team, the appearance of the old flag in the stands. There was an outcry, and the team, including players and management, distanced themselves from Du Plessis' statements.
When a top administrator was asked why this was allowed to happen, the answer he gave was that rugby could not risk antagonising its "guaranteed market".
That may have made good business sense, but as the old flag was a symbol of the oppression inflicted during the apartheid years, the stance was a huge public relations blunder and was contrary to the reconciliation theme which had rallied Mandela behind the Boks.
The Bok standing as a force for change was tarnished further a few months later when coach Andre Markgraaff was forced to resign after being taped using the "k" word in a conversation. In the build-up to the 1999 World Cup, Nick Mallett attracted widespread criticism for his initial refusal to select two black players, Breyton Paulse and Deon Kayser.
This recurrent theme was to resurface again in the build-up to the 2003 World Cup, when under Rudolf Straeuli there were allegations of a racially based altercation in the squad involving Geo Cronje and Quinton Davids.
While there has been transformation across many levels of the South African game, and quotas have had a desired impact at age-group level, the top teams are still seen by many to be predominantly white teams playing in front of predominantly white crowds.
However, the people who are driving the move to have the emblem scrapped don't appear to have the leadership skills to put the message across that this is not about punishing people but about arriving at a place where everyone can feel comfortable about supporting the national rugby team.
The succession of people who have represented the Parliamentary sports committees have let themselves down with public comments that betray a lack of knowledge of or care for the sports they talk about.
The Sportsfolio Committee chairperson Butana Komphela is particularly guilty, and his "no negotiation" stance on the Springbok at last week's Sports Indaba in Durban was followed up by the following: "Minister, I want you to observe the arrogance of the white people on the Springbok emblem."
The prominence of the Springbok emblem in the townships when the Boks paraded the World Cup around the country last year did beg the question on what constituency Komphela and his ilk represent, and this becomes even more problematic when, according to Hoskins, there is more Springbok memorabilia sold in Soweto than there is in white areas of Johannesburg.
That the retention of the Springbok emblem makes business sense is not debatable.
You just had to walk into some of the delicatessens in Paris during last year's World Cup to know how universally recognised the Bok is: If you told a shopkeeper you were from South Africa, he would immediately start chanting "Ah, le Springbok, le Springbok".
Perhaps Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile recognises that legislation won't stop the national rugby team from being identified as the Springboks, for his Ministry is said to be in favour of a compromise which would have the King Protea on the left breast of the jersey and the Springbok on the right.
Ultimately that is what is needed, compromise, and perhaps this is one time when the debate should not be between just key political office bearers and sports officials, who bring their personal feelings to bear on the decisions, but a way should be found to gauge the view of the broader public.
It is true that a nation should play under one emblem, but it is not true that all sporting teams in a country should be known as the same thing. The New Zealand rugby team is the All Blacks, but the cricket team is the Black Caps; the Australian cricket team are not known as the Wallabies.
But Luke Watson is not the only South African to have a problem with the Springbok emblem in its current form, and a solution needs to be found that will enable the whole country to rally around the national teams of the future.