Super Hero Sunday cranked up heat on rugby bosses

The full house that turned up at Cape Town Stadium eight days ago for Super Hero Sunday sent a clear message to rugby administrators — a large, captive audience is ready to get the turnstiles clicking if the sport is properly managed and marketed.

As someone who likes to go to big events rather than just watch them on television, it was a wonderful feeling to be at a rugby event that was not a Sevens tournament or a Test match featuring the Springboks against the All Blacks and feel the vibe and atmosphere that permeated the stadium.

Tickets for the Super Hero day went for bargain prices, so that is one message to the administrators: make the pricing reasonable and the people will come. And don’t just look at big crowds as a means to fill the coffers; big crowds also create the atmosphere that makes for compelling viewing not just at the stadium but on television too.

But pricing is far from the only thing that should be scrutinised as we head into an important year for SA rugby for many more reasons than just that there is a World Cup in September and October. It’s what happens after the World Cup, the potential for a player exodus, that should be the gravest concern.

For if the fans are to continue to attend, stellar stars should be on the field. The local professional rugby operation will not survive if all the best SA players are playing overseas.

Our rugby cannot afford to go through a repeat of what happened to domestic cricket when the national players stopped playing for their provinces and franchises.

SA Rugby director of rugby Rassie Erasmus should play his part by making it more difficult for overseas-based players to play for the Boks, not easier, but that won’t help if the provincial unions don’t play their part too by making it attractive for the big names to stay.

What has been happening off the field in Western Cape rugby over the past few weeks has not been a good start to this critical year. Fortunately, it appears that the professional arm of Western Province won their battle to resist an amateur take over at a crucial meeting on February 8. SA rugby cannot afford to be taking steps back towards amateur control.

It should be going in the opposite direction, towards privatisation. There was a lot of traction on the story quoting Remgro CEO Jannie Durand last week. But his view that privatisation is the only thing that can save our rugby, and create the investment needed to keep enough top-quality players in the country, is not new.

Former SA Rugby Union president Regan Hoskins made himself unpopular with union presidents when in 2014, at a conference in Franschhoek, he said that privatisation is the way forward. Of course the presidents, elected out of club rugby, wouldn’t like that — they want to retain control. But it really is the only way forward.

Even before Hoskins said what he did, we had a players’ view from Victor Matfield. In his book — My Journey, co-written by DeJongh Borchardt in 2011 — Matfield said pretty much what Hoskins said three years later.

Moves towards streamlining the professional rugby operation by reducing the number of unions and by cutting the number of professional players from 900 to 400 need to start happening in 2019 or regional and domestic rugby after the World Cup will be so watered down that even those who do make a habit of attending will stop doing so.

Looking ahead at the Super Rugby season, the old dictum that it is forwards who win matches should see the Stormers installed as favourites to be the main SA challengers in 2019. But much will hinge on whether the professional arm’s victory is indeed the end of the off-field shenanigans that SA Rugby is understood to have intervened in the dispute shows how serious it was.

The players appear to be channelling their anger into their play at the moment, but how long will that last if the noise created by the boardroom battles continues?

The leading SA team of the past three seasons, the Lions, sent out a reminder in the first half against the Sharks on Super Hero day that player losses haven’t completely robbed them of their forward strength.

They should be up there again, though with so much of their forward depth eroded, my money says they won’t top the local conference in 2019.