Saturday Dispatch Rugby’s on life support

IT took the mighty All Blacks to prove in a rather cruel fashion just how awful the state of South African rugby is.

Two weeks ago the New Zealanders pulverised the Springboks 5715 in the Rugby Championship in Durban, raising questions about the quality of our current core of players and management.

The Boks started that match reasonably well and after recent poor performances there seemed a sliver of hope they could turn the tide.

But the wheels came off spectacularly in the second half and South Africa was left to rue the day we came up against a team at the top of its game in every sense.

There is now no avoiding the fact that something has to be done – and quickly.

The SA Rugby Union (Saru) got the message loud and clear and an indaba embracing all the sport’s stakeholders – from coaches, at both provincial and international level including a few former Bok mentors, and the Saru hierarchy – was held this week to address that very concern.

In recent months Oregan Hoskins resigned as Saru president amid challenges that he should shoulder some of the blame for the mess that rugby is in today.

His replacement, the acting Saru president Mark Alexander was upbeat about the frank discussions at the two-day indaba: “They mapped a new direction for SA Rugby. The willingness of the participants to share was outstanding. It was solution driven and we focused on solutions”.

However he cautioned that “there is no short-term fix to what we were addressing”. The success of the gathering will be measured in the coming months and years, he said.

But the Boks are not alone in their troubles. South African rugby overall is in the doldrums and it will take much more than a gathering of minds to resolve the many issues retarding the domestic game.

Lack of funding is one of the biggest obstacles. Most of the 14 provincial unions are cashstrapped. EP Rugby even faced a revolt when players were not paid and it took Saru to intervene to try to rescue the situation.

This week it was decided that Border Rugby’s commercial company, Border Rugby Ltd – note not the union – would apply for liquidation when it became clear that without private equity, the company was not a viable option.

We must now wait to see the effect of all of these off-the-field interventions.

Allister Coetzee and his Boks embark on their end-of-year tour to Britain and Italy in two weeks time. The spotlight will be on them. Should they fail to redeem themselves the knives will truly be out.