A single moment can either ruin your life or make you as a person.
When the coin flip falls in your favour, wonderful! But when it doesn’t, you wish life had a remote control where you can just push the rewind button.
In a single moment, people can either respect you big time or lose all the respect they had for you.
One of those moments played out at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
And I’m sorry for being the guy to highlight this, but Stormers No.8 Evan Roos lost some of the respect I had for him as a rugby player when he shoved one of the Leinster player’s face into the ground after superbly tackling him in-goal to force a poor kick that would have given the Stormers a five-metre lineout.
Instead of getting an attacking lineout, he conceded a needless penalty and Leinster could escape the Stormers’ red zone.
I felt coach John Dobson immediately had to haul him off like my primary school coach once did with me.
While playing inside centre, I suffered a bump to the head in a game. I was deurmekaar from the knock. But I played on and the next time I got the ball, I sidestepped their centre and then beat the fullback with pace on the outside. It was beautiful. But as I sped past the fullback to the tryline, I gave out a cocky laugh - hard enough for everyone to hear. It was probably something like a whaaa!
My coach literally took me by the collar and dragged me off the field. I knew why. I was disrespectful. And as a 12-year-old kid, I learned a valuable lesson - don’t be disrespectful on the field of play, even if you are on top of your opponent.
So on Saturday, I wished Dobbo would get down from his coach’s hokkie and take Roos by the scruff of the neck and haul him off the field - in front of the hele wereld.
Here is a player most South Africans have been rooting for after apparently getting overlooked for the Springbok alignment camp.
With us egging him on, you’d expect the player to be humble and continue doing what he does well - play rugby and play it hard. Not dirty or disrespectful but hard.
Now I don’t know Evan to suggest that this is his personality. That’s why I judge what I see on the field, and for a player who was quickly making his way into South African rugby fans’ hearts as a darling, this was one of those aforementioned moments to me.
Anyway, I hope he has learned his lesson from that incident.
Elsewhere, the corridor talks are that Clayton Blommetjies is set to replace Warrick Gelant at the Stormers.
I want to say up front that Gelant is irreplaceable. The sort of form he has shown for the Stormers this season, you simply can’t replace. I also feel that he has a big role to play in the development of Manie Libbok into one of the best flyhalves in the country.
Having said that, Paarliet Blommetjies, 31, is a player who has impressed me over the years at the Cheetahs.
I do believe he is one of the most underrated players in South Africa and given what the Stormers want to achieve in the Mother City, he fits the bill perfectly. But while he should fit in with the game plan and the team culture, do they really need another fullback?
What’s the plan with Damian Willemse?
Let’s worry about that next season. As for now, Dobson and his Stormers are entering a three-week break before they face Scarlets in the final round of the United Rugby Championship round-robin matches.
As for Mr Roos, dink oor jou doen en late and come back stronger!