and listen to what Beeno is telling you!
Ex Supersport by Brendon Nel who clearly is following me on the ruckers Forum - probably here as a mole!
Former Springbok captain Bob Skinstad likes to use a phrase…
When dealing in rugby banter, good old Bob often comes up with a one-liner – in Afrikaans.
“Dankie vir die waarheid” (Thank you for the truth) he utters, hitting the proverbial nail on the head when often an uncomfortable truth is revealed.
And it’s time for hard truths again. Especially as many rugby fans watch the growing exodus of rugby players to foreign shores, chasing foreign currency with local teams simply helpless to stop it.
The question that often gets thrown my way is why we don’t simply pick local for the Springboks – like the All Blacks do. The premise is obviously that if you do so, players wouldn’t be so eager to head overseas.
Well, unfortunately that’s a flawed argument, for one simple reason – New Zealand has the dollar as its currency, South Africa has the rand. (some of the kbbs dont understand the simplist arithmetic!)
Any top New Zealand player that heads to Europe also does it for the money, but the difference in what they can earn at home – where they are centrally contracted and their careers managed better - is not as great as players in South Africa.
Put it this way, would you spurn the opportunity to play for your country if your salary was increased by say 50%...or doubled even? Then compare it to young South African players who are being offered up to seven times their salaries to play in France.
What we need to accept – and it is difficult for some rugby fans – is that rugby is a career. And a very short one in that. A player’s professional life span is 10 years if he is lucky – more if he is very lucky but often the opportunity to earn good money is less.
We’ve seen over the past few years how players in international rugby are getting younger and younger, and careers are getting shorter. And here we’re not even mentioning the large spectre of injuries that overshadows the game.
So put yourself in Steven Kitshoff or Jacques du Plessis’ shoes. They’ve been beaten down in the never-ending spiral of Super Rugby, they’ve been to Australia 15 times by the time they’re 22 and in South African terms they’re earning good money.
But along comes a French club and offers them seven times what they’re earning. Suddenly there’s the new experience, a new part of the world to explore and yes, money to be made. Whether it’s France, England or Japan, if you’re a professional sportsman, the bottom line comes first.
Rugby desperately needs a global season to help align the northern and southern hemisphere, but financially South African players will always be in demand – they’re cheap, top class and fit in rather easily.
We may not notice it, but the weakness of our currency is not only stripping away our ability to keep our players, it is killing our Vodacom Super Rugby chances. Every year we lament the performances of local franchises. Every year we see teams getting younger and younger.
And while many won’t believe it, if we only picked locally for the Springboks, be sure South Africa would fall again to around five or six on the rankings. Bok coaches wouldn’t want the job, and we’d see a public outcry when a young Bok team loses on home soil more often than not.
If you think the exodus has been bad for players, watch this space this year, as it is set to increase and increase in massive volumes. South Africa may have a lot of talent, but it takes time to nurture it, develop it and see it blossom.
More and more young players will move overseas, and if you threaten them that they won’t be able to play for the Boks, many will simply shrug and count their dollars or yen.
Rugby is a career these days. A couple of years overseas can mean a paid off house, financial freedom and stability and even the entry to a career post rugby. The love of the jersey is still high, but perhaps has dropped a few notches.
As a nation we need to understand that while our structures remain amateur – presidents and administrators rather than professional businessmen running rugby – and the rand stays where it is, we will forever lose players overseas.
And the more our locals succeed across the world, the greater the appetite for more South Africans will be.
South Africa is never likely to field a locally-based team ever again. No wonder the idea of heading north and not continuing in Super Rugby has such an appeal.
What we can do now is manage the players we have in this country better, create more professional structures and management and look at innovative ways of keeping players in the country.
So stop asking why Heyneke Meyer picks overseas-based players. That ship has sailed. Get over it. Money talks in professional rugby and at the moment it sits in Europe and Japan.
The quicker we get used to it the better.
Well said Brendon you have grasped what I have been saying for so long and even understand the arithmetic!
Folks the future is dismal. We are propping up NH rugby plus Japanese rugby and an increasing number of SA players are even in Oz.
The idea of getting businessmen to run rugby is one interesting idea that needs considering. Surel y sponsorhip could be expanded.
As soon as a player is "developed" he is a target. These days this can happen very early on.
