Ken Borland

SA Rugby chief executive Jurie Roux is not subscribing to the views of players and former players from Australasia that the days are numbered for South Africa’s partnership with Sanzaar, but he did acknowledge on Monday that major changes for both SuperRugby and the Rugby Championship were inevitable in a post-Covid world.

New Zealand’s SuperRugby franchises will resume play this weekend in an internal competition, while Australian teams are set to follow a similar route. There has been talk of the two countries setting up a Trans-Tasman competition and increased speculation that South Africa will cast its lot in with the Northern Hemisphere.

“As far as Sanzaar goes, we are busy with negotiations in good faith. I’m not too phased about whatever former players, current players or media have to say in Australia or New Zealand, I’m only interested in the people that sit around the negotiating table and they have a completely different viewpoint. But I always have a Plan B, you need the foresight to plan for the worst-case scenario.

“We are very dependent on the decisions of government and that changes quite regularly. But hopefully next Monday we will hear that we can return to training and then return to play in August. That would be a home-based, truncated version of SuperRugby, followed by the Currie Cup and then moving into more international exposure with the international window now moved to October/November.

“It depends on border restrictions, but there is a biosphere model for our teams to be based in Australia, Argentina or here, with a competition in the Northern Hemisphere being an alternative. The biggest influence on Sanzaar will be if New Zealand and Australia don’t open their borders until April. But it’s very clear that the pool format is not the preferred option, we had to come up with a round-robin in which all the teams play each other and it had to make commercial sense.

“We’ll make a rugby decision and then look at the commercials and logistical challenges like reduced flights and number of business class seats, plus whether teams will have to isolate, which means being in a bio-bubble, or quarantine, which means a month in a hotel room without training, will determine those. But the current format will be too tight in a post-Covid world, which is why we’re looking at different options,” Roux said in a virtual press conference on Monday.

The CEO said that the pandemic had at least provided world rugby with the impetus to move towards a global calendar.

“Covid has enabled us to do what we couldn’t do for 130 years and that’s get a global calendar aligned because all competitions are on hold, agreements have been breached or are being re-negotiated. Basically rugby in the Northern Hemisphere will move from winter to summer. The Rugby Championship will move to the beginning of the year with the Six Nations, SuperRugby will stay at the beginning of the year and international rugby will be in October/November. We’ll probably have that all done by July 1.

“We can’t make a final decision on the Springboks until government opens the borders, but by the end of July we should have a very good idea of their schedule. There are very detailed plans for the Rugby Championship to be held at a single venue. If that doesn’t work out then hopefully we’ll have local inbound tours, otherwise we can go North. Failing that we have some very exciting plans for local competitions,” Roux said.

When the chief executive of SA Rugby talks about “problems in Sanzaar” and feeling “shackled” by the southern hemisphere rugby body, then it is clear South African rugby sees its future as lying elsewhere.

But while Jurie Roux admitted to SA Rugby’s relationship with Sanzaar not being ideal, he stressed that there were no plans to leave the alliance with New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, even though South African rugby will be dallying elsewhere with northern hemisphere competitions like the Pro14.

“This is a very exciting time for South African rugby. We feel shackled in Sanzaar but now we have the opportunity to go north. It gives us options. People think that the Pro14 move is just about the Cheetahs and Kings, but it’s so much more than that.

“With the world calendar not aligned, we were all signing six or seven-year deals that were out of sync with each other. But now we have so many more opportunities and options. I’m super-excited for the Pro14. It’s an elegant solution for our Sanzaar problems,” Roux said on Monday at the announcement of FNB becoming a sponsor of the Springboks.

“We don’t have options in Sanzaar, which means you’re actually nowhere and that’s not where you want to be. But we are really good for each other, so we will still participate in Sanzaar; we are strong because we play against Australia and New Zealand.

“But we can never have eight franchises in Sanzaar, we can have four or five maximum and maybe we’ll even go down to three. But at least we now have options. We still need to play against Australia and New Zealand to be the best, so I don’t see the relationship ending. It’s just the way and how we play that will change. And we’ll have more international exposure up north,” Roux said.

The CEO added that the whole structure of South African rugby competitions would change in 2020 when the global calendar kicks into play.

Roux admitted that the Kings and Cheetahs were like guinea-pigs as they take the first steps into the brave new world of European rugby.

“The Kings will be ready, but it will be a very tough first year for them, although they’ve gone through that before and done pretty well, with Deon Davids one of the most under-rated coaches around; you must watch them from the second year onwards. The Cheetahs are more established and will be there or thereabouts.

“We needed to go north at some stage and we’ll have proof of concept now, you’ll be able to see if it works,” Roux said.

http://citizen.co.za/sport/sport-rugby/1602552/jurie-roux-suggests-the-sanzaar-marriage-is-on-the-rocks/

According to Saru CEO Jurie Roux, South African rugby had to listen to the bark coming from broadcasters and all other stakeholders in the game and cut the number of SuperRugby franchises or face the bite of economic hardship and potential disaster further down the road.

Roux was speaking on Monday at the launch of the SuperSport Rugby Challenge, the new tournament that will slot in at the level below SuperRugby, following Sanzaar’s announcement at the weekend that South Africa will only be able to field four teams from next year.

“Our stakeholders – sponsors, fans, broadcasters and media – have been speaking very clearly about the lack of integrity in the competition because not everyone plays everyone else, and the confusing format of SuperRugby. Broadcasters wanted change to come immediately otherwise they warned us we were going to run into contracting issues.

“And the economic reality is that we cannot sustain six franchises, we can survive with five but then we’d have to sacrifice other things, and neither can we sustain it from the player point of view either. So it’s high time that tough decisions were made for the good of South African rugby, that’s what the staff are paid for and the office bearers are elected for.

“Ultimately it’s a numbers decision, the numbers of spectators and viewers are in decline and there’s obviously an issue with what stadiums are providing as well. Plus half our franchises lose more matches than they win, so they’re not providing quality competition,” Roux said at the Bill Jardine Stadium on Monday.

The CEO said politics and emotion had governed the previous decision to expand to six franchises, but he hopes the newly formed franchise committee, and the Saru general council that will ultimately consider their proposal, lays those factors aside when they consider which two franchises should be cut from Super Rugby.

“The ultimate competition was probably Super 12, but there was some selfishness, some mandates from country’s high-performance units and a lot of revenue and political factors that led to the expansion. The reality is that there will always be some politics involved, but emotions are tougher to manage and I’m sad to say a lot of rugby decisions have been based on them.

“My plea to the franchise committee is to make a swift recommendation, not based on politics or emotion, so that nobody can accuse us of stalling. I will push as hard as I can to have this decision made as quickly as possible, at most within a month’s time,” Roux said.

The CEO suggested another four professional franchises could play as a group in other overseas tournaments, while adding that the 14 provincial unions had to continue as semi-professional entities looking after the broad base of the South African rugby pyramid – the amateur and school teams.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20170411/282144996206681

Cape Town, the Mother City, is renowned for her tranquility and the purity of her environment, but beneath the veneer there is probably as much devious wheeler-dealing as anywhere else in the country.

I say this because of the politics and individual agendas that have been going on in Western Cape sport for some time, proving that although Cape Town may feel like it is on another continent, the other side of Table Mountain experiences similar problems to the rest of the country.

The sport’s body that is putting out the most fires at the moment is probably the South African Rugby Union, based in Plattekloof, and it all starts at the top with the CEO, Jurie Roux.

Saru president Oregan Hoskins had to issue a statement on Friday stating that Roux wasn’t appointed back in 2010 with any cloud hanging over him. The Stellenbosch University allegations of financial impropriety against Roux are, in my opinion, opportunistic and stem from a long-running feud within Maties rugby itself.

I have been assured by other leading rugby administrators that Roux certainly wasn’t the only university administrator to allegedly divert funds in order to obtain top players. I am sure, based on the ugly power struggle raging behind the scenes in Stellenbosch rugby circles, that there are two sides to this particular story and perhaps those accusing the Saru CEO of all sorts of things should allow him to defend himself in a court of law.

But the battle to defend their CEO, and at the same trying to make sure that the Southern Kings are not a complete disaster in Super Rugby, is certainly distracting them from what should be their most pressing commitment at the moment and that is finding the new Springbok coach.

Rassie Erasmus is now the favourite but while I am sure the former Springbok loose forward has the technical and strategic skills for the job, the national coach’s position is about so much more than just the on-field training and preparation.

It’s also about handling the media and the voracious television demands, as well as meeting the expectations when it comes to the key area of transformation.

Erasmus has had a cocoon around him in the Saru offices, quietly and efficiently getting on with his work as a director of rugby type figure, and there have been suggestions that whoever will be assisting him with the Springboks (Johan van Graan is one probability) will front up for the media and PR duties.

This would be totally unacceptable. Only a little less unacceptable is the suggestion that Saru will only make an interim appointment.

The Springbok coach has a position of enormous responsibility and, unlike so many leadership positions in this country, there needs to be accountability to the public. Heyneke Meyer may have failed to bring home the World Cup and perhaps struggled to grasp transformation imperatives, but kudos to him, one could never accuse him of not fronting up and trying to explain himself.

Cape Town is a beautiful place, but she hides many things and Erasmus will not be able to hide away if he wants to be Springbok coach.

Otherwise the fairest Cape has another coach she has watched grow and who has handled often antagonistic media in a mature and effective way and that is Allister Coetzee.