Opinion - We may be heading towards a sunny summer in South Africa, but for many diehard sports fans, the past weeks appear more like a winter of discontent.
The gloom first set in for thousands of soccer fans when Bafana Bafana lost their last chance of competing in the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia after their humiliating defeat against Senegal.
And on the rugby field, the Boks did the country’s fans no favours by losing to underdogs Ireland last week.
But perhaps the most crushing and devastating blow of all came last Wednesday when South Africa - despite producing a compellingly impressive bid to host the Rugby World Cup in 2023 - got pipped at the post by France.
And with that announcement, the nation slumped into a deep depression.
Since then, the post-mortems have come flying in on why we lost the bid after coming so tantalisingly close.
Were we perhaps too cocksure of victory after being told we were the preferred bidders?
Did our officials believe we had it in the bag and rested on their laurels instead of lobbying for support among other member nations?
Were we perhaps too complacent and expected our reputation internationally would carry us through?
Or were we just victims of a ganging up against us by other member countries?
Whatever the case, the stark reality is that we’re now out of contention and no amount of speculation, excuses or conspiracy theories are going to help us.
So, instead of sulking over our disappointments at national level, our sport administrators need to start paying far greater attention to sport development at school and club level again.
Far greater resources are needed at a level at which children can be nurtured and motivated to excel from an early age.
And this has to be achieved on a non-racial basis, not on any formula based on racially-based quotas.
A quantitative survey by the Institute of Race Relations in March last year showed clearly that the quota system was opposed across all race groups.
An overwhelming 77% of all respondents in the survey answered “yes” to the question: Should South African sports teams be selected only on merit and ability and not by racial quotas?
In fact, the most salient fact to emerge from that survey was that the wish of most South Africans of all backgrounds and races is that their country’s sports teams should win and win regularly.
They want results and do not care two hoots about the racial make-up of their teams.