Ken Borland

Having attended a private school in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, I’m as used to the accusations of my alma mater being stuck-up as I am to the reality that in national terms, we are pretty low down the pecking order in terms of schoolboy rugby.

Barring the odd golden periods, the private schools generally struggle to compete with the likes of your Grey College, Paul Roos, Paarl Gym, Affies and Paarl Boys’ High. But where their contribution is proportionally greater is in providing Black players for the pipeline.

And perhaps this is one of the key reasons a thriving schoolboy scene does not translate into greater success for our Junior Springboks side. There has been a lot of angst expressed in the last week over their performances on their tour of the United Kingdom – they were hammered by England and could only snatch a last-minute win over Wales.

The displays did not engender much confidence that South Africa can compete for the honours in the World Rugby U20 Championship that starts in Argentina early next month. It’s a tournament which the Junior Springboks have not won since 2012 and they have not appeared in the final since 2014.

It’s not as if they’re finishing at the bottom of the log either, though, with South Africa having finished third three times in the last four years and fourth once. But given the widely-held belief that we have the strongest schools rugby system in the world, there’s the lingering feeling that we should be doing better.

The problem is the advantages our schoolboy behemoths have in terms of strength, power and pace don’t last through into the senior ranks. Winning at all costs in the highly competitive schools scene means physical characteristics are relied upon and developed, to the detriment of skills. At senior professional level, everyone is pretty much on a par physically thanks to the scientific advances in conditioning, and South Africa loses its advantage.

This mentality also means South Africa’s great rugby schools have been ignoring their responsibility towards the pipeline of our rugby through their reluctance to embrace the need to develop more Black talent. It is time those top-10 schools become more transformed in their recruitment and in the teams they put out on to the field week in, week out.

Quotas or targets have been in place in our national teams for a long time now, and our top rugby schools really need to get with the program. That’s if they really have the national interest at heart and are truly preparing their pupils for the real South Africa outside their secluded cloisters.

Most of the Black players in the Junior Springboks system come from private schools, but I would love to see those great establishments mentioned above push more previously disadvantaged players through their outstanding rugby systems, which can only see better players being produced. I am pleased to hear that Grey College are planning big changes in this regard.

Quotas are obviously controversial and are not a perfect tool. Personally I don’t like them, but I liken them to elephant culling.

Elephants are my favourite animal and I cannot stand the thought of them being killed. But I also recognise the need for culling because if their populations in game reserves are left unchecked, elephants destroy their environment leading to the deaths of both themselves and many other creatures.

The fact that elephants are confined to game reserves is a man-made problem, therefore man has the responsibility to find a solution. Likewise, Apartheid was a man-made problem and quotas seem to be the best solution on the table right now to undo the damage.

Given how long we have waited for the Springboks to comprise just 50% players of colour, I shudder to think what would have happened if quotas were not in force.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20190504/282467120320394

A physical, ball-carrying No.12 has almost been one of the consecrations at Loftus Versfeld through the years, but new Bulls coach Jake White looks set to deviate from that formula, which is why he released former captain and stalwart Burger Odendaal from his contract.

The 27-year-old Odendaal, who played 56 Super Rugby and 50 Currie Cup games for the franchise, has moved across the Jukskei River and will turn out for the Lions once rugby resumes in South Africa, hopefully within the next two months. It has left the Bulls with a very inexperienced midfield comprising Clinton Swart, Stedman Gans, Diego Appollis, Dawid Kellerman, Marnus Potgieter, Jay-Cee Nel and Wian van Niekerk, none of whom have any Super Rugby experience.

“The way the Bulls played in the past, there’s no question Burger was very important to the team as a captain and leader and added value as a player. But it was going to be very difficult to continue with him as a player if I could not guarantee him a starting spot and because of the new salary caps you can’t afford a high-earner like him if he’s not going to play.

“It’s like back in 2004 when I became Springbok coach and De Wet Barry and Marius Joubert were the centres, two great players and people. But in the 2007 World Cup my centres were Jean de Villiers, Francois Steyn and Jaque Fourie because I had evolved as a coach from using a player like De Wet into looking for something else. So when I looked at Burger I thought it would be like going back to De Wet Barry and we want to play differently.

“So telling him that up front meant he was able to go with the market value as captain, rather than staying and not playing and losing value, so he decided to go. Our CEO Edgar Rathbone was previously with the Lions and he helped broker the deal such that the player didn’t lose any money and has guaranteed playing time, so it’s a win/win for everybody,” White explained to selected Bulls media on Thursday.

While the Bulls’ midfield may be raw and young, there is plenty of experience elsewhere with the likes of Gio Aplon, Cornal Hendricks, Morne Steyn, Duane Vermeulen, Arno Botha, Juandre Kruger and Trevor Nyakane, and White says he is encouraging an avuncular approach in order to help a new-look squad gel together.

“We’re not like other teams which have the luxury of being settled and how quickly we can become a team is a big question. Duane Vermeulen, for example, does not know half the guys because they have never trained together. But there are things we can do to help that, which we are busy with, such as every week the players draw a name out of a hat and they have to have coffee with that guy and find out his story.

“Psychologist Henning Gericke has also been helping because we are probably the one team that needs cohesion. I heard there’s a possibility of us playing in two bubbles, the first six weeks with the four Super Rugby teams and then in the second round an eight-week Currie Cup like tournament with Griquas, the Pumas, Free State Cheetahs and Southern Kings. I’m sure in 14 weeks we can get them tight-knit and we just want to make sure we get into the finals in December,” White said.

WorldRugby may have this week opened a window for the Rugby Championship to take place in New Zealand between November 7 and December 12, but the situation is still far from ideal for South African participation. But commercial imperatives dictate that the Springboks simply have to find a way to get over there and play, otherwise SA Rugby will suffer devastating financial losses.

It is the Sanzaar competitions that bring in the bulk of South African rugby’s revenues and with SuperRugby having been scrapped after just half-a-dozen rounds, it is the Rugby Championship that needs to save the broadcast deals through providing some live content.

As SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux said recently, the Rugby Championship is a very expensive competition to run, but the broadcast revenues are significant enough that the commercial value compels Sanzaar to continue the event. The difference between revenues and expenses is the reason SA Rugby can use the Rugby Championship to cross-subsidise several other competitions.

One of those competitions is the Currie Cup, which used to be an event of industrial proportions in South African rugby, the envy of the world. Sadly SA Rugby has over the years allowed the jewel in their crown, their most valuable property after the Springboks, to fade into relative insignificance.

But the imminent demise of SuperRugby is likely to bring a resurgence in domestic competition and a Currie Cup style tournament this year is going to play a crucial role in the Springboks returning to action; hopefully that local action will continue to be a focus in 2021 and beyond.

Even though playing in Europe seems to be the big prize at the moment, and private equity investors in our franchises are already saying this is essential for them to get a return on their money, hopefully SA Rugby will still put energy and resources into having a strong purely local competition.

In the meantime, the top eight teams in South Africa are going to play a tournament later this year to at least get rugby back on the go locally. Apart from providing some content for SuperSport, who pour millions into the game, those eight teams are also going to play a vital role in getting the Springboks ready for action.

With New Zealand and Australia already back playing rugby for half-a-dozen weeks and South African players realistically only returning to action in mid-September, there have been understandable concerns expressed that the Springboks are going to be on a hiding to nothing if the Rugby Championship is played this year, being so far behind in terms of preparation. There have been angry mutters about their World Cup win being tarnished.

But the reality of the situation is that even if the Springboks are going to disappoint in terms of on-field results, they simply have to return to action and our television screens, it is a financial imperative. And they have played for financial reasons before, most recently when they lost to Wales in Washington in June 2018.

New Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has said a squad of 45 players are going to have to travel to New Zealand and quarantine before entering their bio-bubble, and there have even been complaints from local coaches that that will decimate their provincial squads. As is often the case in South African rugby, the unions are going to need a reminder that they are there to serve the national cause, any local competition this year is mostly about getting the Springboks ready for action.

Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos certainly knows the value of the Springbok brand and last weekend he was stressing the importance of them returning to international action before the end of the year. And as we saw at last year’s World Cup, in which they were certainly underdogs, the ability to rise above the obstacles in their path is a great property of the Springboks.

“By no means will the playing field be level, but the Springbok side have a deep, steely resolve, and I know Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber will optimise whatever time they have to be as competitive as possible,” Marinos said.

Nienaber says the players in the Springbok squad need at least six games beforehand in order to be able to play in the Rugby Championship. They are unlikely to get much more than six matches unless rugby somehow resumes later this month, but at least they will be going to New Zealand feeling fresh.

And there is a large gap between the Rugby Championship kicking off and the end of SuperRugby Aotearoa and SuperRugby Australia. The New Zealand competition ends on August 16, with no final, while the Australian final will be held on September 19. Whoever handles the double-edged sword of rust versus fatigue best will have a large advantage, and I wouldn’t write off the Springboks just yet.

Sanzaar CEO Andy Marinos said on Saturday that cross-border rugby between South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina needed to continue, but whether he was just talking about the Rugby Championship or also SuperRugby surviving in something similar to its current format seems to still be classified information.

New Zealand Rugby seem to have already taken the decision to pull out of SuperRugby, while South Africa seem to be looking more and more into throwing in their lot with European competition. Australia are desperately trying to stay joined with their Kiwi neighbours, while Argentina are probably just hanging on to whatever scraps they can get.

But Marinos disagreed with the current narrative that Sanzaar’s partners are all trying to jump ship when he spoke in an SA Rugby Legends webinar on Saturday.

“We are busy working through our 2021 plans, but the whole return-to-play is not easy to navigate, you have Product A and then 24 hours later you have to change to Product B. The challenge is cross-border rugby because of all the government and medical controls and access to flights. We have to be realistic: The individual unions are responsible for keeping rugby alive and sustainable in each of their markets and then they can look at the feasibility of cross-border competition.

“But we are working through this as a joint venture. A round-robin structure next year is not looking that optimistic because flying won’t be that easy yet. But there is a strong acknowledgement that cross-border rugby needs to be in place in the future. Playing against players from other countries only makes our nations stronger internationally, that’s what has allowed the Sanzaar nations to be the dominant force in world rugby,” Marinos said.

The former Stormers and Wales centre denied that there was anything wrong with SuperRugby as a product and said the attacking nature of the competition has played a major role in the success of the four Sanzaar nations at the World Cup.

“The impact on the bottom line has been significant but it’s not because of poor delivery or a lack of quality or interest in the product. I would unashamedly say we have some of the best players in the world and we’ve seen that at the World Cup. The strength we’ve got is that the toughness of the competition and the global expansion of SuperRugby means our players are used to adapting to different conditions and being on the road for long periods.

“The Northern Hemisphere players don’t have that benefit, they have one-hour flights and they’re away for a weekend. The conditions we play under, plus the fact we put more air on the ball – there’s a very attacking mindset and the teams are as positive as possible – has played a significant role in the World Cup results. And with New Zealand and Australia playing again, we have seen an upturn in people coming back to the game, and SuperRugby can start regenerating itself,” Marinos said.