Johannesburg — I HAVE had enough of this obsession with colour in the national rugby squad.

After the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup last year I thought some of the colour counters would shut up once they saw what rewards selecting the best available players could deliver.

Clearly, though, there are people who believe colour is more important than winning.

One such person is parliamentary portfolio committee vice-chairman Cedric Frolick.

I was left speechless last week when Frolick shot off his mouth about too many whites in the team for this past Saturday's Tri-Nations Test against the All Blacks at Newlands.

I counted seven black players in the match 22 named by Springbok coach Peter de Villiers, which is a pretty good effort considering it was a vital Test in SA's series aspirations. The most important thing was that every one of those players was there on merit.

In my view, De Villiers has lived up to expectations about transforming the national squad in his few months in the hot seat, with the likes of props Brian Mujati and Tendai Mtawarira, scrumhalf Ricky Januarie, centre Adrian Jacobs and fullback Conrad Jantjes all being named in the match 22 regularly. Another player who earned a start after being drafted in and then dropped from the national squad a few times since 2004 was Cheetahs wing Jongi Nokwe.

Frolick's comments were not the only ridiculous chirps last week. The latest talk is that Mujati and Mtawarira are not black ; instead they are Zimbabweans. S ince when are black players not classified as such, simply because they are from another country?

If you ask me that is indirect xenophobia and there is no place for such unpleasantness in South African rugby.

But the most laughable quota comment I heard in the build-up to the All Black Test was that Bryan Habana was not black, but a coconut. Yes, you read correctly, a coconut. And that was said on national radio.

The man who said that claimed that Nokwe's exclusion from the squad for the All Blacks game to accommodate Habana was shocking. He justified Nokwe's inclusion in the squad saying the player was hero-worshipped in Eastern Cape and did not put a foot wrong in his debut against Argentina two weeks ago.

The irony is that this same guy probably hero-worshipped Habana when he scored some of the vital tries that guided the Springboks to victory at the World Cup.

These critics should think about their argument in detail before saying it out loud and embarrassing themselves.

There were few inexperienced players in De Villiers's match 22 at the weekend -- with Mtawarira and lock Andries Bekker being two of them -- and yet the Springboks were thumped 19-0.

The score line would have been even worse had it not been for three missed penalty kicks and a conversion by New Zealand flyhalf Dan Carter.

Do those colour critics ever wonder how embarrassing the score would have been for the Springboks if inexperienced players were included simply on the basis of their skin colour?

I am willing to bet that most of the fans who spend hundreds of rands for tickets to watch the Springboks in action would continue to flock to the stadium even if there were 15 black players in the starting line-up -- provided they were the best in their respective positions.

Jacobs, for example, was a super sub at the Sharks for years, a specialist impact player. But he has grabbed his chance to play for the team with both hands by creating several of the team's tries this season.

He has performed so admirably that Jaque Fourie might battle to reclaim his place in the squad when he recovers from his broken cheek bone.

Including players in the team simply to make up numbers would be an insult to such players as Habana, Jacobs and Ricky Januarie among others.

Frankly I have had enough of this.

Isaacs is rugby correspondent