In South African rugby there is no more popular Sunday sport than taking pot shots at the Springbok coach after a defeat the previous day. It is easy game. The Boks lost, the coach is useless and the players have no skills and are overpaid and ...
This is perfectly understandable given that the Springbok players and coaching staff are the very visual point of reference. The knee-jerk reaction is to vent spleen at somebody you can identify with.
This week the All Blacks are in town. They are like a procession of Rolls-Royces rolling down NMR Avenue to Kings Park where they will, well, roll over, a noisy bunch of Japanese sedans.
It is going to happen. Sad, but true.
And on Sunday social media in this country will go beserk. The coach is out of his depth, the players are morons, etc.
This is becoming the norm for South African rugby, the last great relic from our sports amateur era. Heck it is was good in the olden days. Beefy farmers bullied skinny accountants, doctors and lawyers from the northern hemisphere that trained on Tuesdays and Thursday after work. Then there were the real Tests, against the farmers from New Zealand... They could bully you back, and then some.
Let’s cut very swiftly to the chase. New Zealand modernised on the hoof and set the trends post 1995; the rest of the rugby world has not been too far behind.
Professional rugby players around the world are much of a muchness in terms of physical attributes because they all go to gym and take the same supplements.
Nobody cares that when then the Boks emerged from isolation in 1992, they had beaten the All Blacks 20 times and lost just 15 to their rivals.
Young rugby fans of today will think you are making it up if you said that the Boks once had a superior record to the All Blacks.
Well it is going to get progressively worse. And for heavens’ sake it has absolutely nothing to do with that horrendous racist cop-out of transformation and quota. There is not one black player in the Springbok squad that is not there on merit.
It is all about the pathetic failure of the governing body of South African Rugby to shed their amateur status and move into the 21st century.
How can it be that in 2016 we still have the presidents of 14 provincial unions, all with the same vote, deciding our rugby future? Many of those fat cats picking up their free Test tickets (and who knows what other gravy train benefits) preside over unions that are either bankrupt or being propped up by Saru. Look out for them in the stands at Kings Park, under their furry blankets and eating their biltong.
The problem is they won’t vote for change because they are protecting their status.
This is the bottom line. South Africa remains one of the best producers of young rugby talent in the world. This will always be the case, and it is exciting the talent pool is growing as the game is introduced to new cultures.
But then we have this governing body who selfishly refuse to allow the administration of rugby in this country to evolve into the modern era.
Fourteen Unions? 700 professional players? A dreadfully poor Currie Cup which was once the bastion of the South African game? Four hundred South African players playing professionally overseas?
Oh. And a battling Springbok team. And it will all be the fault of the coach when the Boks lose on Saturday.
So when and how can South African rugby streamline into, let’s say, six sleek franchises with the dead wood cut adrift.
We would then have far fewer professional players who would earn a great deal more money and would be less tempted to go overseas. And then the Springbok coach would be able to end this sad business of begging for the services of overseas based players.
Everybody knows the remedy makes sense but it will remain a Holy Grail as long as those 14 presidents protect their passage on the gravy train.
Independent Media