South Africa is a land of contrasts, as the tourist brochures
promise, and this is true for the game of rugby. From the Pretoria
heartland to the aspirant Eastern Cape, from the hardscrabble Cape
Flats to the islands of privilege at Bishops and Grey College. No
other rugby-playing nation has to grapple with so much diversity.
Different languages, classes, races and cultures Â- each bearing the
wounds of the country's fractured past Â- have to be melded into
winning teams. Liz McGregor has spent the past three years shadowing
Currie Cup, Super 14 and Springbok teams across the country, and has
come to the conclusion that it is this very diversity, combined with
the pain of the past and the dreams of a great united future, that
provide the elusive alchemy that separates a good team from a great
one. Touch, Pause, Engage! is more than a book about rugby. It is an
intimate look at how South Africa's erstwhile elite is adapting to
its new circumstances. Team South Africa has been through many a
maul and bruising scrum, but is inching closer and closer to the
tryline. Liz McGregor is a veteran author and journalist who started
off her career on leading South African newspapers and subsequently
moved to Britain where she worked for the Guardian for several
years. Her first book, Khabzela: The Life and Times of a South
African, laid bare the complex reasoning behind a DJ's refusal to
take medication to stave off AIDS. She has co-edited and contributed
to two collections of essays: At Risk and Load-shedding.
