Shocking rugby news......Boks ice young overseas players

This from SA Rugbymag: ....... SA Rugby has announced that only overseas-based Springboks with more than 30 Test caps will be eligible for national selection as of 1 July. The policy was approved by the executive council of SA Rugby in Cape Town on Friday, with the aim of encouraging players with fewer than 30 caps to return to South Africa should they wish to be considered for Springbok selection in the future. The policy replaces the existing situation where any player eligible to play for South Africa could be picked at the discretion of the Springbok coach. However, the coach will retain the right in a World Cup year to select any player he believes is essential to the campaign – regardless of number of caps. 'We are sending a message to young players that if they wish to play for the Springboks, then they must remain in South Africa,' SA Rugby president Mark Alexander commented. 'But we have also retained flexibility for the coach to select exceptional players who may be based overseas, provided they have a proven track record of 30 Tests for the Springboks. 'How to balance the need to select the strongest possible team against the challenges of having such a large number of players based overseas has been a subject of long debate in our game. 'We have made this change in what we believe are the best interests of the Springbok team, but we will review it periodically in conjunction with the national coach.' ........... All this will do is encourage youngsters to go overseas sooner. Thirty caps will seem out of reach to most young players......so staying to achieve that is no option. And so whenever they go overseas their Bok career is over.....might as well go for the money today. And all these capricious rule change don't make for sensible planning. Yet another nail in the Bok coffin.

 There is also the quota system that ensures that young players see no international future for themselves in SA - so they might as well accept they have no future in SA Rugby.    

This is not the action of a team in trouble....silly stuff.

 Marcel Coetzee at 28 tests must be kicking himself......but Willemse is probably the biggest loss.

...Not that many Springboks affected of note anyway...you could probably count them on one hand
Vincent Koch (9): Arrived at Saracens in the off-season on a two-year contract from the Stormers after impressing for the Cape Town side since he joined them from the Pumas. The 26-year-old is an excellent tighthead who was pushing hard for Springbok starts before heading north. Should he remain abroad he would be a big loss to South African rugby.

Steven Kitshoff (10): Another young front-row, loosehead prop Kitshoff arguably should have accrued more than the 10 caps he has after impressive efforts for Western Province and the Stormers during his time at Newlands. The 25-year-old is at Bordeaux-Bègles in the first of a two-year deal, with the new rule leaving him with a dilemma about his future.

Cobus Reinach (10): The most recent Springbok set to depart South Africa, Reinach’s switch to Northampton was announced on Monday, but the length of his contract wasn’t confirmed. A devastating scrum-half who has just returned from injury, his 10 caps means he’s also unavailable. However, he is currently arguably third choice Springbok nine.

Marcell Coetzee (28): A special talent, who recently returned to the field after working his way back from a serious knee injury, the 28-times capped back-row forward will be unavailable for Bok duty on July 1 if he doesn’t add two caps to his name in the June Tests. Surely he will do as the Springboks do not want to lose this abrasive 25-year-old.

Arno Botha (2): Botha is another impressive back-row to come off the South African conveyer belt but he will join Coetzee at Ulster on a two-year deal at the end of Super Rugby 2017, it was announced recently. The Bulls said they could not compete with the package offered by Ulster as Botha is set to move on – a problem heard all too often.

Johan Goosen (13): Perhaps the most uncertain Springbok affected by the rule, as it is not yet known where Goosen will be playing his rugby in the future, if anywhere at all. Capped 13 times, the versatile back retired in December, leaving Racing 92 under a cloud but could he return at a club abroad? We wait to see how this story plays out.

Plenty of players who could have been Boks....Willemse and Rhodes for example. More to the point though, this is likely to make young players think the rules are even more stacked against them.

If the quotas are increased to 80% (After 2019)- why would any non-black player stay. 

Then the white fellas can become the quotas & we can reverse the whole transformationafixiation p rocess .

 Just increase the size of the boks to 110 players [about 80 of those being chaps you found kicking a ball around a park and who will sign up for a free jersey] then select the ones you want from that pool ! Simples !

 

If the quotas are increased to 80% (After 2019)- why would any non-black player stay. 

The quotas are not applied now. It is an indication they wont be after 2019

 A world of fantasy. The last tale of excellent men.

All these guys appear what they appear in their club's shirts. Their performance, once into a team that has no collective idea and has nothing of the cohesion of a club team, is a big question mark.

England is reported as a example, yet they took the decision of rejecting as much as possible any player not playing in their home league.
Maybe they figured out that building a team on players playing in the same league, on the same schedule is somewhat a bonus.

NZ fights tooth and nail to avoid losing one of their AB team players to a NH club. It might be important who knows?

In the meantime, in the last stage SA, people fancy over dominating the rugby world by bringing together players playing all scattered around the world, with no patriotic feeling, no love for the shirt.

 Traditionalist, I don't know who indoctrinated you but whoever it is has done and outstanding job. I mean, you are consistently repetitive and boring.....in plain English I mean you say the same things over and over.....and over.
I'm not the first and only one to tell you that either.
Other than telling us to dump rugby and  that "excellent" men plunder resources......do you have anything new? I guess not.
So, just to be clear, we know and understand what you're saying and that's because you say exactly the same thing over and over.....and over.
For the good of South Africa I hope and pray that there aren't any more of you in South Africa and that Hell must freeze over before you and others like you are in positions where you determine the future of South Africa and South Africans.

 

Who the hell are excellent men? I can't understand what you are saying TheTraditionalist! You use a lot of words, but you aren't saying anything! 

 Giveithorns, welcome to our forum ........ like DbDraad, I'm speechless .

 
Hard to believe that the blame for the Goats' season last year is still being layed at the feet of the players.

Yeah...that's typically us...always looking for scapegoats...

 
Ha-Ha!!

How you doing, Sebastien?

No it was all Coetzee.....you know when Stephanie got dummied twice by the same player......all Coetzee. After all our players need to be coached not to be dummied, how can they be expected to think on their feet?

Another pathetic call by SA rugby along with the retention of the utterly useless Coetzee and the increased quota....Bok rugby is as good as dead and buried. I really feel for this generation of players who should have been part of a great Bok side

We are still thinking as if we are co- equals with the ABs, as opposed to a rugby nation plunging into the second five. Venter may be okay/ Franco Smith only made things worse on the YE tour......it all comes down to the head coach.

 Over many decades we were ahead of the wee abs in tests.
Fact is nothing except graft works well In South Africa. Imagine if a nation like Japan had our riches!

 
We haven't been in the same galaxy as the All Blacks for many a year. Our last three coaches saw to that.

Snorre took the number 1 ranked side in the world and descimated it within 2 years. We became the laughing stock of world rugby. Most folks are still trying to figure out his riddles.

Meyer came along and kept the rot going. He fed it with sub standard caps which led to the inevitable loss to Japan which still has the rugby planet in stitches.

Now we have the dim witted Coetzee trying his best to outdo the previous two chumps. The thing that really worries me is that he's upped the anti - in as little as one season we've plummeted to what ... 7th?

He's bested both Meyer and De Villiers without much effort. The man's a natural.

Well at least Coetzee has one dedicated fan in Mozart cheering him on.

 Nope, I wasn't cheering him along. But the players were at least 50% of the problem....including many of the Leins you admire.