Donal Lenihan, Capetown

GO BOKKA, go Bafana Bafana. Side by side the two old symbols of sporting segregation on the front pages of the national newspapers on Saturday morning. In the horrible days of the apartheid system Springbok rugby was predominantly the game of the white Afrikaaner while soccer was the sport of choice of the coloured majority.

Bafana Bafana is the name affectionately given to the national soccer team who reached the semi final of the Confederations Cup while the Bokka are busy trying to bury the Lions. In many ways South Africa seems more tuned in to next year’s World Cup than the Lions tour which the large sign in Durban airport reliably informs us is now only 352 days away.

Side by side the spanking Moses Mabhida stadium, a spectacular new venue for next year’s event and the ABSA Stadium - or Kings Park as we used to know it - as a towering symbol of Springbok rugby, represent the changing face of the South African landscape.

On the invincibles tour of 1974 Willie John McBride’s men got used to the coloured community supporting their team and revelled in the sight of the Bokka being slain. Not anymore. While it was a little disconcerting to see a number of empty seats at the opening test on Saturday it was abundantly clear that the sizeable coloured supporters in an integrated crowd were very much behind the Springboks. In the outstanding loose head prop Tendai Mtawarira, named man of the match to the approval of the sizeable Sharks supporters, the native South Africans have a forward that they can be proud of. Chester Williams was the face of the 1995 triumphant World Cup-winning side while Brian Habana has been the favourite of the kids in recent years. The cry of “Beast Beast” engulfed the stadium every time the giant prop touched the ball, made a tackle or propelled the Lions scrum backwards.

The Beast must be stopped in his tracks next Saturday.

The Lions departed Durban yesterday shaken but determined to rectify the areas that cost them so dearly in the first test. Only time will tell whether their dominance in the closing quarter was a reprieve on the part of the South Africans or a realisation that the hosts are vulnerable after all?