Ken Borland

Another season of the Women’s Premier Division came to an end last weekend with the Bulls Daisies securing back-to-back titles, and the attention in local ladies rugby will now pivot to the newly-announced Super League professional franchise competition recently announced by SA Rugby.

While the Super League would be a boost for the growth of high-performance women’s rugby in South Africa, there are still pivotal questions around when it will start and how it will work, especially in terms of player contracting.

SA Rugby said they intend to contract 150 women players for the new competition, with the provincial unions being invited to submit proposals for inclusion of a franchise in the new Super League.

But the Bulls, who made a groundbreaking move to being fully professional last year, already have 35 players contracted and the vast majority of those will be offered new contracts on September 1.

SA Rugby want the Super League to begin in early 2025 and have said the “centrally contacted players will be shared out among the teams”. Unless the 150 given SA Rugby contracts don’t include any Bulls players, there is going to be a tug-of-war over the services of the players who have dominated the Women’s Premier Division over the last two seasons.

“We will entrench our players,” Thando Manana, the executive in charge of women’s rugby for the Blue Bulls Company, told Rapport. “SA Rugby say they are going to contract 150 players and although it is good to have this innovation, we need to tread carefully in our rush to get this Super League underway. There’s definitely going to be a timing issue if they want to start in January.

“I love anything that develops the game, but we can’t wait for all the details to come out, we will be renewing contracts for the new cycle that starts on September 1, and some of those will be extended to two or three years. We’re not looking at what others do, we will be pushing forward in the months ahead to take women’s rugby to another level,” Manana said.

Blue Bulls Rugby Union president Willem Strauss said he would rather reserve comment on the Super League until they have more information.

“I don’t know much about it, but anything that takes women’s rugby to the next level, I will support. But I need to know the details about the Super League, hopefully it aligns commercially with what we have done with such success over the last two years.

“As a board, we are very happy with what we have achieved in women’s rugby. It was a brave step to go professional in the women’s game because the financial impact was negative. But once we started performing then we started to attract commercial partners.

“Our team has improved a helluva lot and this year we had to use a lot of club players because of national team call-ups. But the number of women taking up the game has expanded by 30% per year, which is fantastic because it shows that going professional is sustainable. There are more and more women’s teams joining the league, as well as youth clubs, which shows that the ecosystem is healthy.

“Plus the Bulls Daisies bring a new audience to Loftus Versfeld which is very important, it’s not a traditional Pretoria crowd. The Bulls Daisies have certainly added value to our brand of excellence and they are inspiring the next generation of women’s stars,” Strauss told Rapport.

Lynne Cantwell, SA Rugby’s High Performance Manager for women’s rugby, praised the Bulls for their top-class programme and said the aim of the Super League was to get the rest of the country’s players to that level of excellence.

“The goal of the competition is to make that leap into where the performance standards align. Once we get there, all the teams will be more competitive and the women’s tournament will go down to the wire, we want to get to the situation where you never know who is going to win.

“The Bulls took that leap two years ago and have led the way, and we’ve seen their big performance leap. You have to give credit to Western Province, and the fact that they pushed the Bulls in the final is testament to their pipeline. There are great signs of growth, they are swelling their player numbers and Boland have done this as well.

“The goal is to have all our premier teams to be like the Bulls, and then that will make for a strong national team. The Super League will be performance-driven, and hopefully that means teams can ask more of sponsors, they can pitch higher because of increased visibility. That will drive game standards and allow teams to employ high-quality coaches, physios, medics and strength-and-conditioning coaches,” Cantwell told Rapport.

The former Ireland star envisages a league with four or five teams, with each side playing eight to 10 matches. The Super League will not replace the Premier Division because it will be played at a different time of year.

Cantwell is keen on a draft system to allocate the contracted players, but she acknowledges the Bulls issue will need to be resolved.

“The Bulls have a significant number of our top players and it will need to be a gradual approach in terms of how we spread the top players around. The Super League will be our top-end competition, but it will take a couple of years for everything to be aligned.

“We want the other teams to have programmes that are the equivalent of the Bulls. With SA Rugby funding the player contracts, there won’t be as much pooling of players at a single union because we can say where they must play,” Cantwell said.

The Netherlands, with former Protea Roelof van der Merwe leading the way in typical Bulldog fashion on his former home ground, and motivated by the anger caused by the scrapping of the Super League for World Cup qualification, will come out roaring in the first ODI against South Africa in Centurion on Friday, but Tabraiz Shamsi promised that the home side will also be sufficiently fired up to be at their best.

South Africa’s motivation will come from a combination of new faces being given precious opportunity at ODI level, and their own rather poor standing in the Super League at present: They are currently in ninth place. The 2023 World Cup will be a 10-team event, with the top teams from the Super League qualifying.

But earlier this week the ICC decided that the 2027 World Cup, of which South Africa will be co-hosts, will be a 14-team event with a separate, one-off qualifying tournament for non Full Members.

“The Netherlands have a few South African players and I’m sure they’ll have a point to prove,” Shamsi said. “And with the Super League being scrapped, the Netherlands could feel this is their last opportunity to make a statement.

“But we definitely won’t be taking it easy either, we have been preparing as hard as we can because we need points for World Cup qualification. The Netherlands also have some quality players, some of them play county cricket.

“It took me two-and-a-half years to play two ODIs in a row and now we have some new guys who will get to play three games in six days, so it’s a massive opportunity to establish yourself.

“So not much changes whether we’re playing England, India or the Netherlands, every game is an international and we’ll be trying to put in a performance that reflects that,” Shamsi said.

South Africa’s attack will be a pale imitation of their usual firepower, with Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje being rested, Lungi Ngidi testing positive for Covid and Lizaad Williams out injured. Although there are experienced seamers still available in Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius and the recalled Wayne Parnell, it is likely that the Proteas will rely heavily on spinners Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj.

The duo have enjoyed a purple patch in ODI cricket of late, taking 26 wickets between them in eight matches at an economy rate of just 4.68 runs per over.

SuperSport Park has a reputation for spinners being mown all over the ground, but the actual figures are not so clearcut. Shamsi brushes off the theory that spinners can’t shine on the Highveld.

“It’s weird that the chat is that the Wanderers and SuperSport Park are not spin-friendly, but I made my international career playing at Centurion and I don’t see any stigma for spinners there.

“Yes the ball flies, there are smaller boundaries and not as much assistance from the pitch, but we have developed different game-plans that take the pitch out of the equation if it doesn’t turn,” Shamsi said.

South Africa’s poor placing of ninth in the Super League for ICC World Cup qualifying means it is imperative they cash in on the visit of the Netherlands later this month and win all three ODIs, but the selectors on Wednesday still announced a Proteas squad missing numerous frontline players.

Keshav Maharaj will lead a South African team in which Reeza Hendricks, Janneman Malan, David Miller, Tabraiz Shamsi and Lungi Ngidi are the only regulars, along with the two all-rounders Dwaine Pretorius and Andile Phehlukwayo.

But as selection convenor Victor Mpitsang explained, it is a necessity due to player welfare concerns. The stars who have been rested have basically spent most of the last five months going from bio-bubbles in the West Indies, to Ireland, to Sri Lanka and then the UAE. And they will re-enter another bubble in a months time for the Test series against India.

“It’s so difficult because we need to make sure we play well and beat the Netherlands, but the challenge is that a majority of the guys have been in bubbles for the last few months,” Mpitsang told The Citizen on Wednesday.

“They need a mental break, so we have given them some rest with a long, important summer ahead. The selectors and the coach had discussions and Mark Boucher wanted a certain group of players to have a mental break.

“He recommended certain players and we spoke to them as well. A guy like Keshav was confident that he could handle another week, he was looking forward to playing and it’s another opportunity for him on the captaincy side.”

So it means several players who probably will find no room in the Proteas inn around Christmas time will now get their chance in the Green and Gold.

And for Khaya Zondo and Wayne Parnell it means a return to the national team for the first time in several years.

Zondo in prime form at the moment having scored an unbeaten double century a fortnight ago, is back after a three-year absence. Mpitsang said his return comes as the selectors try to fill slots in the middle-order.

“Our batting line-up is a bit top-heavy, but Khaya has a specific role and experience in the middle-order and is in helluva good form. He played some crucial T20 innings for the Dolphins and paced things nicely.

“And I think Wayne has really grown and developed since he last played for the Proteas four years ago. He has done exceptionally well coming in at No.7 for Western Province.

“He is so mature because of the amount of cricket he has played … and he’s a left-arm fast bowler. All-rounders like him make such a difference because it gives us the opportunity to play a second spinner while still having three frontline quicks,” Mpitsang explained.

Proteas squad: Reeza Hendricks, Janneman Malan, Ryan Rickelton, Zubayr Hamza, Khaya Zondo, David Miller, Kyle Verreynne, Dwaine Pretorius, Andile Phehlukwayo, Wayne Parnell, Keshav Maharaj, Sisanda Magala, Lizaad Williams, Tabraiz Shamsi, Lungi Ngidi, Daryn Dupavillon.