Administrators have to up their game to plug player drain
SA’s participation in the Guinness PRO 14 has been under the radar since two local teams joined the northern hemisphere competition 12 months ago, and judging from the opening round of the 2018-2019 edition, that doesn’t look like changing soon.
There is talk of the SA footprint in Europe being expanded from 2020 but the chances of there being strong local interest in the competition before then are being stunted by a number of factors, not the least being that the two participating teams, the Cheetahs and the Southern Kings, are a long way from being considered fashionable or a big drawcard.
The Kings have sponsorship at last and the Cheetahs spoke about their second season being the one in which they would gain momentum after making a last-minute entry into the competition 12 months ago.
But neither have made much headway regarding recruiting during the off season. The Kings may have a touch more experience than they had in 2017, but the team that was beaten 32-16 by Italian side Zebra in Parma was made up mostly of journeymen. Far from attracting talent and increasing depth, the Cheetahs have lost quality players such as Francois Venter and look worse off now than they were.
From a national viewpoint, at least South Africans don’t have to put up with the embarrassment of having the Cheetahs described by overseas commentators as the domestic champions. They are not that anymore, and they went into the competition off two big defeats in the Currie Cup.
The overlying message that looks like being further reiterated between now and the end of the PRO 14 season in May is that SA doesn’t have enough quality professional players to spread across six franchises (two PRO 14 and four Super Rugby teams).
The first round provided a stark reminder of why this is so. Arno Botha, the former Bulls loose forward now playing for Munster, was the star of the Irish province’s 38-0 win. Jean Kleyn, a former WP lock, was not far behind, and we don’t need to be reminded that there are a few other South Africans who have made it big in Ireland.
The weakness of the SA currency will continue to provide challenges, but if the country is going to persist with six franchises, it accentuates the need for the administrators to get their act together in their attempts to reduce the torrent of players leaving for overseas clubs to more of a trickle.
The mooted reduction of contracted squads to 45 players, thus doing away with at least one of the age-group competitions, would be a big step in the right direction. There are too many young players on the food bills of the top unions who will never make it to senior representative rugby.
It is a waste of money, and if the unions and franchises start contracting for excellence and elite performance rather than lifestyle, they will have more money available to keep top players in the country.
If it is made more attractive for the elite players to stay, the changes to the contracting structure should be supplemented by a return to the ban on overseas players being eligible to play for the Boks.
The South Africans playing in Ireland and England are exposed to a high level of professionalism and there are therefore benefits to be derived from the relaxation of the eligibility ruling.
Those benefits might be outweighed by the negatives, and it does nothing for the continuity, culture or direction of the Bok team, or the chances of bringing in a uniform conditioning programme such as that which works for New Zealand and the All Blacks, that some of their key players are owned by overseas clubs.
Yes, it is supposedly mandatory for clubs to release players in the international window, but the system is too open to manipulation.
There is a reason England coach Eddie Jones won’t pick overseas-based players, and ditto the All Blacks.
The local contracting system is a mess, but if it is sorted out there might be enough quality players who are committed to staying to make it possible to focus on building a tightly knit home-based national squad. That would prevent the current farce in which the availability and readiness of some top players to play for their country is at the whim of outsiders.