Rugby Equity for SA Super Rugby Teams

Johannesburg - Since Sanzar announced that 18 Super Rugby teams would be reduced to 15 next season and that SA Rugby (two) and the Australian Rugby Union (one) must cull sides, the South African media took it as a foregone conclusion that the Kings and Cheetahs would go.

This was done without proper investigation and interrogation, which did not surprise me – that’s how lazy our media sometimes is. Without digging for more and finding different opinions, they oversimplified a complicated matter.

I believe that this is a golden opportunity for SA Rugby to re-examine and revamp what I consider to be a racist rugby landscape.

Overall contracting

Super Rugby rights are owned and belong to SA Rugby and not the franchises, to whom they are allocated by the governing body.

If SA Rugby has accepted Sanzar’s decision, the franchise contracts become null and void.

If we agree with that, we have to re-imagine the allocation of the four remaining franchises across the Republic.

The allocation of these four franchises should move away from historical apartheid rugby structures and look into the future.

SA Rugby must be bold and take on the overall contracting of Super Rugby players, and then allocate them to all four franchises in an equitable and balanced manner to ensure that the teams are competitive and financially viable.

After they have been contracted, we can look into how we can allocate the franchises across the country in line with SA Rugby’s strategic transformation plan, which comes with the following motto: “delivering rugby’s future”.

Rugby equity

Given SA Rugby’s blueprint, the players contracted by it would have to be allocated as follows to be in line with the vision:

. Franchise A: Combine the Bulls and the Lions

. Franchise B: Combine Border and Eastern Province

. Franchise C: The Western Cape

. Franchise D: KwaZulu-Natal

The preceding options will ensure that rugby equity and rugby development are maximised.

Rugby equity is about fairness and is concerned with ensuring that opportunities in the sport exist for everybody, regardless of race and gender.

Unfortunately, SA Rugby, the provincial unions, the universities and their sponsors do not respect that, and have no regard for equity and redress in rugby.

Rugby development is creating pathways for an individual’s progress in rugby, from the learning of early foundation skills in school through to the achievement of the highest levels of excellence in the sport.

Not emotional point

Township and rural schools and clubs and universities are vehicles for black (African and Coloured) players to exhibit their talent.

Unfortunately, SA Rugby has no meaningful or effective program in those areas, and sponsors are only interested in white schools and universities.

There is no way that the Eastern Cape, whose number of clubs put together and compared with the Lions and Bulls are no match whatsoever, can be excluded.

And this is not an emotional point.

The majority rugby population in the country is black and the Eastern Cape is home to black rugby – black African rugby in particular.

The Eastern Cape has the best school system to sustain the franchise in future and many unions outside the province recruit talent from school level to boost their future performance chances.

SA Rugby has drawn up the following criteria on which it will decide who will be culled and who will be retained:

. Financial and economic sustainability;

. Sustainable support base;

. Team performance; and

. Stadium and facilities.

The criteria set out are not worth interrogating because of no franchise ticks all the boxes. SA Rugby should allocate the franchises to the four strategic regions with the most growth potential and align them with its strategic transformation plan.

As a society in transition, rugby must be persuaded to contribute to the transformation agenda of our country and promote social cohesion. Franchise allocation is one tool that can be used to achieve this.

Matika is the EP Kings’ deputy president and chair of the Rugby Transformation Coalition

Combining the Bulls and Lions might work because they are only 30 minutes away. 
The bulls could be moved to Johannesburg.

They Bulls style of rugby will only work when the forwards dominate. They have little to no running game, so losing them might not be such a big loss.
I expect the Kings will be retained- especially as they are doing better than many SA teams this year. The last game the Kings played- had more black players than any Super Rugby team - not just players of colour.  

 Perhaps the Kings are just a better coached team than the Bulls. The solution has been staring us in the face for the last 25 years........our admin and our coaches don't know, to the point where some don't know that they don't know. Our best coach to date was JW, never recognized by the powers that be, thrown under a bus while doing his best and finally outed facing the wind. Well done SARU for decimating the Springbok......well done to the Boards of the Bulls for appointing one useless coach after another and well done to the race obsessed ANC for initiating racial selections and mediocrity at the expense of excellence.

The above article is absolute BS not taking regard of the fact that there are moves afoot in privatizing ownership of franchises in line with the club situation in Europe and in many other sporting codes.   You cannot identify an area - where there is no backing from private sector investors.   
The other story is not solely the problem with SARU - the Government does the minimum or indeed nothing to enhance any sport at school level.   There are no sports participation from the overwhelming number of schools and virtually none from rural schools,   While  SARU is not beyond criticism, why is the article 100% silent on the problem of Government neglect in sport development (and that applies to all codes of sport) and the virtually zero interest in teachers at most schools to help with coaching of pupils and encouraging them to participate in sport.   The Trade Unions have also got a major hand in neglecting school sport to the minimum.  
In the Eastern Cape there are only three sport schools in existence and when pupils from those three schools leave schools they often leave the Eastern Cape area to go to Universities outside of that area.   There are indeed four Universities in the area - one of which participate in the Varsity Cup and the second one in the University Shield competition.  
All people are in favour of expanding rugby as a sport and that must start at school and must include proper nutritional and physical development programmes 0 not only on speed.   Until there are proper development programmes in place in all secondary schools the idea of developing rugby in schools is a pipedream.  
However, where does SARU gets most of their money from?   It is from DSTV and in particular Supersport.    And TV serve their subscribers and there is not enough of those in the Eastern Cape area and also in the Free State to justify neglect of oter areas where the subscribers number is higher.
I do not think that the type of racist selections will ever work out before the situations in all secondary schools have been corrected and a wider participation base has been established and developed.