Professionals need to be disciplined

Several years ago while  in Cape  Town on business, I had  the good fortune to stay in the Cullinan  Hotel in Cape Town at the same time as that well known South African rugby team, the Blue Bulls.

Having finished my meetings  quite late at night, I dragged myself off to bed, just as a raucous and celebratory Blue Bulls team  arrived from having played and won.

Too tired to care, I fell asleep, only to be woken in the very early hours by a still celebrating team.

Wishing  to get some sleep (as I still  had business to conduct the  next day), I opened my  door and shouted at the team to  be quiet.

Immediately there was silence, I was content, went back to sleep, and thought nothing of it.

Once Sol had risen, I descended to have breakfast, and was joined by my two colleagues.

While eating  our breakfasts, and discussing our plan of action for the day, the entire Blue Bulls team descended on  us in single file with the manager at the head.

The Manager politely requested that he be allowed to interrupt, on on being given permission, proceeded to apologise for the teams behaviour.

Of course, we all accepted the apology, but the  Manager was not satisfied until each team  member apologised.

The three of us were amazed!

Even  though this was one of the finest professional provincial rugby teams  in South Africa the  team would  still show exemplary discipline and be humble when called upon to do so.

Now, in all my years that I have  been involved with draughts, checkers, esports  and wargames, I have not yet found  a so-called 'professional' that  would  act with a tenth  of the discipline  as exhibited by the Blue Bulls team.

Mind  sports players who consider themselves to be professionals act with unbridled arrogance.

Whereas the  best rugby players will accept the authority of National and Provincial bodies (and those  that represent such  bodies), the so-called professional eSports players, in South Africa, continue to put themselves  at odds  with such, and then wonder why they are  not included in national teams.

Every eSports player in South Africa by now should be aware that  the only way into an official South  African national  team is  through official MSSA championships.

Energy Gaming (eN) and Bravado (Bvd) realised the above  in 2013. Thus in 2013 the DotA 2 team was made up by both teams to give SA its strongest ever DotA 2 team.

2016 is  pregnant with possibilities.

MSSA will be selecting a whole host of teams to represent South Africa.

The question is, are you up to it?