COACH’S BOX
Transformation targets still far from our reach
A new year always brings about hope and promise. All the goals left unfulfilled from 2018 suddenly get an adrenalin shot and spring back to life in the New Year. This year is no different.
Last year ended on a sour note for one of the beacons of black rugby, Border. Their shutdown brought a dark Christmas for its staff, management and players.
During what was supposed to be a festive season, you could spot a Border Bulldog or two shooting the breeze and putting on a brave face.
Many of them have families to feed, but Christmas carols turned to Christmas tears for them and their loved ones.
As we enter the year in which we see the fruits of rugby transformation labour, the death of one of the black-run provinces sends a chilling tone with regards to what we should expect this year.
It is a World Cup year. This is the shopwindow for the gains of the past four years. The multiple coaching changes in the Springbok management setup will serve as an early excuse, but it looks like we are headed for one big, giant “F’’ on the transformation targets.
Border’s disbandment will make for cherry-pickings for black talent for unions that struggle to make targets, and they will get players on the cheap.
Unless they get decent moves to clubs in Europe or the US, where the currency will favour them, the Bulldogs will be used as box-ticking exercises at unions and get paid a pittance.
Higher up the hierarchy Super Rugby teams will continue making Rassie Erasmus’s job hell on the transformation front. Lest we forget, SA Rugby’s strategic transformation plan of three years ago required that the Boks produce a 50% black team come the Japan World Cup this year.
And in order to do that, you would have realistically been looking at 60% black representation at Super Rugby level, filtering into the required 50% for the Springboks once the wheat is separated from the chaff.
But that certainly hasn’t been the case. Teams like the Bulls and Lions have continued getting by with sometimes three players of colour in their starting teams, without repercussion.
By May last year, Super Rugby teams the Stormers, Lions, Sharks and Bulls were averaging 33%, 31%, 28% and 23% black representation in their match squads respectively.
Those are dire numbers if the eventual national bar is set at 50%.
The Bok head coach was given a 45% target by his bosses in 2018 and they only managed 38% black representatively by the last Test defeat to Wales in November.
The coach, to his credit, took blame for the numbers not being met, but said in an interview that he would not “cheapen the transformation process” by putting a black player ahead of a white one just for the sake of numbers.
Of those black players that get game time in the Southern Hemisphere’s most competitive tournament, very few command starting places every weekend. Most battle to earn the trust of their white coaches and have to settle for an unfamiliar position just to earn a place in the team.
And the trend has been perpetuated by the Bulls’ appointment of Pote Human as head coach for Super Rugby and Currie Cup. The blockage for black talent starts there. Without black coaches there can be no transformation.
The Pro 14, and most especially the Southern Kings, has emerged as the beacon of hope for black talent in the country.
If the Eastern Cape region could unite for their cause, we could see the rebirth of professional rugby in the province. Let’s hope 2019 will bring the change we need.