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Let’s try and keep the talent pool at home
Africans have always used song – iGwijo – to encapsulate what they are feeling at any particular time.
During the dark days of apartheid, we used song to express the emotion we felt. In jubilation, it is song that carries us through. The same applies in times of adversity.
I felt a wave of pride washing over me when I sat in the stands during the Varsity Shield double-header that was played at Buffalo City Stadium in East London on Thursday.
Although I was wearing my Nelson Mandela University (NMU) Madibaz presidential jersey, I was proud to see Rhodes University put on their best performance in the competition, winning their first Varsity Shield game against Fort Hare University Blues (13-12 the final score) in the opening game.
Madibaz followed on and beat a spirited Walter Sisulu University (WSU) All Blacks team pretty much on experience. From the get-go you could tell that WSU were fired up for the clash but as the game wore on, the Varsity Cup experience Madibaz brought to the Shield started to separate the wheat from the chaff.
No matter the results, though, this was a great advert for rugby in the province. The scenes were beamed live on television across the country and people from the Border region, especially in East London, can feel proud of the day.
It was the first time that these four big Eastern Cape universities came together on one rugby field and competed against each other and it showed that the key to reviving rugby in the province lies with these four institutions.
The 18,000-strong crowd that attended outdid the number of fans Maties usually bring into the stands at Stellenbosch University. Some of the players were saying they’d never played in front of such a massive and vocal crowd.
Provincial games don’t even bring in those numbers anymore. This is what rugby needs. This is the exact shot in the arm that rugby in the region needs.
I’ve written before that in order to retain the talent produced by historically great rugby schools such as Selborne, Grey High School, Kingswood, St Andrews, Queen’s College and Dale College is to have a high performance academy that services the needs of sports kids that enter these tertiary institutions.
St Andrews only lost one game last year but where are those boys now? They fill the ranks of the Sharks, Bulls and Western Province academies. Selborne got five SA Schools products in last year’s team yet none of them will graduate to play in their home province.
Not only will rugby benefit but you’ll find that more Anaso Jobodwanas, more Daine Klates, more Ashwell Princes, more Patrick Mayos and more Makhaya Ntinis are produced from the other sporting codes as a result of such an academy.
Provincial government needs to step up and realise the potential that lies in the sporting departments inside NMU, WSU, Rhodes and Fort Hare. Thursday night was proof that the kids can no longer be ignored and they are the future.
We, who are passionate about the growth of the game in the province, are coming together to make this four-sided rugby day a regular fixture in the calendar, outside of the Varsity Shield tournament.
The night belied the dysfunction that has engulfed Border Rugby Union at the moment. Due to lack of finances, and maladministration of the sport, Border were at risk of not playing professional competitive rugby this year.
Sounds coming out of East London are that the provincial sports department has stepped in to make sure that this is not the case. Border will escape, once more, by the skin of their teeth.
If there is any honour left in the administrators that allowed Border to descend into the doldrums, they would have had a look at Thursday night and felt ashamed. Ashamed that they have let this province down. Ashamed that they have let these kids down.
And if they feel any sort of remorse, they will clean the province up, refresh the leadership structures and create an environment that’s conducive to rugby growth. The kids need it.