The Coca-Cola Craven Week that ended at Kearsney College last weekend was one of the best I’ve attended.
The group of media people I spent the week with agree that it was superbly organised and the people running it were friendly and obliging - that’s not always the case.
It was two weeks in one - the Coca-Cola under-18 Academy Week took place at the same time - making it twice as difficult to organise yet the KZN people pulled it off with grace.
And the rugby was good too. Everyone knew Western Province were going to be the team of the week. The performance of the Paarl and Stellenbosch schools in inter-school competition leading up to the tournament indicated they are without peer. (And yes, everyone is still wondering why on Earth, for rugby only, those Boland schools are part of Western Province - no answer on the horizon).
This year the Golden Lions, who had some special players of their own, met Province in the main game of the week and were far more competitive than Eastern Province were this time last year, making for an entertaining ‘final’.
There seemed to be a return to adventurous running rugby from most of the teams, less ‘bumper car’ stuff, and the number of tries scored was up on recent weeks.
Yet, for all that many people, including SA Rugby, I should think, came away from Botha’s Hill quite disturbed.
The Earth has shifted. It’s been happening for quite a few years now, but for various reasons it seems 2016 will be remembered as the year when the old model changed.
The Craven Week, for 50 years, has been a celebration of our superb school-based rugby system, and it made us the envy of the rest of the rugby-playing world.
It was a joyous feast of skill and ability and out of it emerged so much richness of talent that the senior provincial unions didn’t know what to do with it.
Then they changed it all. Some of that change was entirely necessary. It was a whites-only party and thankfully that’s no longer the case. The result has been an immeasurable improvement in playing performance - go look at the WP v Lions main game again if you don’t agree (heaven knows SuperSport are repeating it often enough).
Not so positive in its consequences has been the professionalisation of the game. The science of professional rugby, exercise techniques, nutrition, medical protocols etc have been a great addition, but the introduction of money as a major motive for playing the game was always going to spoil things.
And 2016, I suggest, will be the year when that happened. The signs were there last year when one of the top players was being traded on the open market for weeks and eventually settled for an offer of close to half a million rand from one of the Super Rugby franchises.
Half a million! For a 17-year-old? You don’t see that every day and I doubt it happens in other professional codes around the world where apprentices still have to clean the boots of the pros and where freshmen aren’t allowed to play in their first year of college.
This year’s most ominous twist was the presence of agents from the top French and English clubs - South African ex-players of those teams - at the Craven Week, armed with hefty chequebooks, by all accounts.
Rumours, and some substantiated reports, have it that they were making Euro and Pound-based offers to players that were more than double what the local unions and universities were able to put up.
According to one report, 35 players had already signed up for overseas clubs halfway through the week.
It’s a perfect storm. The rand exchange rate is the big thing, of course, but the perception that the Minister of Sport has indicated there will be no place in future Springbok teams for white (or coloured, for that matter) players isn’t helping either.
There were 460 players at the Craven Week. The overseas scouts were only after a fraction of them. At least the others would have enjoyed an old-fashioned week at Kearsney College.
I certainly did. - Independent Media