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Bullet pulls the trigger on drugs, brothels ... an

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    Posted: 04-Jan-2020 at 7:40pm
https://www.iol.co.za/sport/rugby/bullet-pulls-the-trigger-on-drugs-brothels-and-rugby-40031610

This book was always going to be a fasten-your-seatbelts, high-octane blast given that one of rugby’s most unapologetic characters is telling his story to South African sport’s most fearless reporter.

We are talking about James Dalton, the Springbok hooker that you could well bump into if you lost your way down a dark alley, and Mark Keohane, alias “Cowboy” as they called him when he lived in New Zealand on account of his six guns shooting from the hip in his unambiguous stories.

Keohane will be remembered for the brutal manner in which he exposed the realities of Springbok rugby in the unfortunate era that followed the dawn of the new millennium, in his book Springbok Rugby Uncovered.

Metaphorically, he pulled no punches in that expose and Dalton literally did the same in a 43-cap Test career in which the Boks almost never lost when he was spearheading the forwards from the centre of the scrum.

The relevancy of a book on a rugby player that retired 17 years ago will be raised, but herein lies the charm of this riveting tale - it is far more than the blow-by-blow account of a Springbok rugby player.

It is also very much an incursion into South Africa’s sinister underworld of Hells Angels, drug running, assassinations and brothels. Dalton inhabited this world while, miraculously, starring as a Springbok hooker at the same time in a very different world and, as he vividly depicts, it also killed him.

He has literally survived to tell the tale, and Keohane does this full justice in a book that cannot be put down.

Dalton just does not hold back. Early on, it is Jeppe High coach Jake White that cops a barrage of bullets for what Dalton perceived as a gutless failure to defend him in the headmaster’s office following a punch-up in a match between Jeppe and Athlone High.

Dalton says he was honour-bound to belt an opposition player who had knocked out Dalton’s teammate, Brent Moyle (a future Bok prop) and was intent on kicking the defenceless Moyle.

But Dalton says White hung him out to dry in front of the headmaster, and he describes the future Bok coach as “Jake the Snake” and “self-serving and spineless”.

That sets the tone for the book, and Jake is hardly the first and last to get a salvo from the Bullet. In fact, the book closes with another coach suffering an excoriating roasting. The reader winces as Rudolf Straeuli is flayed alive for his misguided antics as Springbok coach.

In between, there are some wonderful insights, including what made Kitch Christie such a fine coach of the Springboks and Transvaal and why “miserable” New Zealander Laurie Mains forced Dalton to quit his beloved Transvaal.

Disturbing is the revelation that in the late ‘90s and early 2000s there was a significant recreational drug culture in South African rugby.

A number of players dabbled in drugs on Saturday nights following games, with Dalton admitting he was often the organiser.

He describes how in London in 1998 he asked “connected” England player Lawrence Dallaglio to arrange free entrance to a fashionable nightclub for some of the Boks on the Wednesday before they were to play England. Dalton wasn’t one of them and that night he received a call from a furious Dallaglio who claimed a Bok had asked one of the bouncers: “where are the drugs?”

Maybe that is part of the reason the Boks lost that weekend to England, having gone into the match locked on a world record 17 consecutive wins with New Zealand.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AK  Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jan-2020 at 10:35am
Dalton , Keohane en White. Nogal `n lys van eerbare mense Unhappy...... 

Keohane was mos self ook deel van `n dwelm skandaal.......
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Leeubok Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jan-2020 at 9:41am
Het hy regtig verwag sy skool afrigter (White) moes hom beskerm na 'n bakleiery? Klink vir my of die hele boek maar net gaan oor slegpraat van die waarvan hy nie hou nie. Nee wat, stel nie belang om die te lees nie. Sal eerder nog uitkyk vir John Mitchell se boek
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Transvaal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jan-2020 at 9:49am
Ek lees graag enige rugby boek, mens kry altyd juwele daarin
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ROOIHART Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jan-2020 at 11:04pm
Originally posted by Transvaal Transvaal wrote:

Ek lees graag enige rugby boek, mens kry altyd juwele daarin

Ek het hom sommer in een middag deurgedraf. Hy speel bietjie onskuldig/victim in die boek wat ek nie koop nie maar ek het dit steeds geniet. Mens sou dink dat ouens wat die rwc saam gewen het sulke great vriende sal wees maar ek het maar net besef watse groot persoonlikhede jy nodig het om so iets reg te kry. Van die 1995 span as jy bv Pienaar/Small/Dalton/Wiese/Le Roux etc in kamer saam sit praat jy van massive persoonlikhede. Moeilikheid is heeltyd een sin weg.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vaal Leeu 3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Jan-2020 at 5:41am
Originally posted by ROOIHART ROOIHART wrote:

Originally posted by Transvaal Transvaal wrote:

Ek lees graag enige rugby boek, mens kry altyd juwele daarin

Ek het hom sommer in een middag deurgedraf. Hy speel bietjie onskuldig/victim in die boek wat ek nie koop nie maar ek het dit steeds geniet. Mens sou dink dat ouens wat die rwc saam gewen het sulke great vriende sal wees maar ek het maar net besef watse groot persoonlikhede jy nodig het om so iets reg te kry. Van die 1995 span as jy bv Pienaar/Small/Dalton/Wiese/Le Roux etc in kamer saam sit praat jy van massive persoonlikhede. Moeilikheid is heeltyd een sin weg.
Toe ek begin lees aan jou reply het ek vir n oomblik gedink jy het gou vir Bullet deurgedraf Wink

Edited by Vaal Leeu 3 - 08-Jan-2020 at 5:41am
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