Provinces miss Saru transformation targets
SA Rugby president Mark Alexander has questioned the lack of transformation in senior franchise and provincial teams after only a handful of unions managed to achieve their targets last season.
Most of the provinces who competed in the 2020 Super Rugby or PRO14 season, Super Rugby Unlocked and Currie Cup failed to achieve the desired 45% representation for “generic black” players, and 22% for “black African” players.
In fact, only the KwaZulu-Natal and Western Province Rugby Unions had reached the 45% generic black target, with only KZN and Eastern Province attaining the 22% black African mark.
With the generic black target, there were obviously better results, although it was still short of the
required totals. In the early 2020 Super Rugby tournament, which was called off in March due to Covid-19, as well as the PRO14 contested by the Cheetahs and Southern Kings, the statistics were as follows ... Bulls: 33%, Eastern Province/Southern Kings: 34%, Free State: 26%, Golden Lions: 33%, KZN/Sharks: 42% and Province/
Stormers: 46%.
In Super Rugby Unlocked, the data was: Bulls: 35%, Cheetahs: 26%, Lions: 32%, Griquas: 38%, Sharks: 56%, Pumas: 28% and Stormers: 48%.
In the Currie Cup, it was as follows: Blue Bulls: 30%, Free State Cheetahs: 32%, Golden Lions: 26%, Griquas: 33%, Sharks: 62%, Pumas: 36% and WP: 46%.
The black African statistics were markedly poorer. In Super Rugby/ PRO14 – Bulls: 11%, Southern Kings: 22%, Cheetahs: 15%, Lions: 19%, Sharks: 34% and Stormers: 12%.
In Super Rugby Unlocked – Bulls: 10%, Cheetahs: 13%, Lions: 20%, Griquas: 19%, Sharks: 37%, Pumas: 16% and WP: 14%.
In the Currie Cup – Bulls: 11%, Free State Cheetahs: 19%, Golden Lions: 16%, Griquas: 16%, Sharks: 44%, Pumas: 19% and WP: 15%.
In the SA Rugby annual report tabled this week, Alexander said: “When the success of transformation is determined by budget allocation, one must, unfortunately, ask the question whether it is a symptom of a
system that has not changed at its core.
“If the statistics are correct, we have a shrinking coloured and whiteplayer base in our country, and if we fail to attract the rest of the population groupings to our sport, we will have a small pool of players on which to draw.
“Transformation asks for our business to be done differently; it is a process of fundamentally restructuring the very basis of our business with different priorities, and the reallocation of current resources that will contribute to a conscious, deliberate, planned, and goal-directed change, with the sustainable growth of rugby being at the heart of it.”