Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
‘No-tackle’ rugby rejected
Proposal by UK experts dismissed in South Africa Guptas: We’re not leaving for Dubai
CALLS in the UK to ban full-contact rugby in schools are gaining no ground in South Africa, with players, schools, coaches and rugby authorities dismissing it as extreme and countering that the risk is no worse than in other sports, and significantly lower than for playground accidents.
The controversy was sparked when 70 experts wrote in a letter addressed to ministers, chief medical officers and children’s commissioners in the UK that rugby was a “high-impact collision sport” which posed “high” and “often serious” risk of injury.
They wanted the traditional game to be replaced by touch rugby for under-18s.
Major rugby schools in the Western Cape were quick to reject the suggestion yesterday, saying if tackles and scrums were removed, it may as well not be called rugby.
“If these elements are taken away, what is the sport all about? They will have to give it another name,” said Sean Erasmus, Paarl Boys High head coach.
Paarl Gymnasium principal Eddie Bateman agreed, pointing out that very few rugby injuries at the school were the result of tackles or scrums. They had seen no serious injuries in the past five years. “If there’s proper training and conditioning, it’s not that dangerous.”
Their view was supported by respected South African sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker, who said while a total ban on rugby tackles would certainly affect injury risk in the age groups where it was imposed, the reality was that rugby, with tackles, would exist for over 18s.
“Removing tackles in children, then, is to say that the thing most likely to injure a player should not be taught at all, even though it will be required in the future. That’s absurd logic and all it would achieve is to shift the burden of injury along the age spectrum,” Tucker warned.
The SA Rugby Union said it was fully behind World Rugby’s statement that the call for a ban on tackles in rugby was “not based on evidence”.
“Nor does it add to our understanding of the important issues surrounding player welfare,” the union said.
The UK letter said the experts had become increasingly concerned “about the harms and risks of injuries to children playing school rugby”. The majority of injuries occurred during contact or collision, “such as the tackle and the scrum”.
They warned of potential “shortterm, life-long and life- ending consequences”, and linked concussion with depression and memory loss. Asked to comment, local forensic pathologist Dr David Klatzow yesterday made reference to research conducted by a Bishops mother on hundreds of rugby-playing and non rugby-playing pupils entering the school, and in their final year.
He said she found the IQ, an indicator of cognitive ability – reasoning, remembering, understanding and problem-solving – of the rugbyplaying boys dropped over the five years, compared to those who did
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Bateman and Erasmus, agreed that rugby injuries were a major concern that “people never want to talk about”.
Erasmus said: “Rugby is a sport we all love, so we need to ensure the boys are 100 percent ready to play it.”
Working on contact and defence patterns constituted 75 percent of his school’s first team’s training. The players were taught many techniques to minimise injury, like moving their faces to the side when they fell on their knees in the scrum.
They pointed out that South African rugby was following that of New Zealand, with players looking for gaps instead of running into and over players, which would contribute to reducing contact-related injuries. “The Lions are playing like that more and more. The Stormers too,” said Bateman, warning that South Africa’s primary schools were particularly far behind in this regard because they got their “biggest most physical player to run right through everybody”.
Erasmus said modern rugby was moving away from “running over the guys”.
“The game is becoming quicker, with less contact.”
Tucker also said in South Africa law changes and recognition of other forms of rugby involving fewer tackles were already on the table for discussion.
“But what happens when you come into a discussion and propose an extreme solution that is ignorant of progress already made is that you not only ignore what is on the table, you overturn the table and send all its contents flying, and the people sitting around it scattering.
“What will that achieve? Precisely nothing,” he said, adding that dialogue, rather that polarising viewpoints was preferred.
Kevin Smith, coach at Maritzburg College in KwaZuluNatal, said they were expected to produce conditioned players who could later become professionals.
“We coaches have been told if they are not being conditioned by 16 and identified (as future potential Springboks), you are falling behind.
“Part of the conditioning is getting used to those bumps,” he said.
Glen Hageman, of Sharks Medical, said schoolboy rugby today was played at a higher intensity. “There are more injuries but at the same time there is a lot of work behind the scenes to make rugby safer.”
Clifton Durban coach Grant Bell said the critics often failed to realise players at higher levels in school rugby benefited from “greater coaching expertise” and so were “better prepared to deal with these collisions”.
“I share the belief how more injuries occur at a level where players are poorly coached and poorly conditioned and often poorly officiated by referees.”
He said Saru was combating this by insisting all coaches attend BokSmart courses, the primary focus of which was to make rugby safer through educating coaches and ruling that all coaches have a minimum coach accreditation of World Rugby Level 1. “This legislation comes into effect in April.” THE GUPTA family have vehemently denied reports they are packing for Dubai and said they would take legal action against those who have published the story.
A report citing ANC sources appeared in Africa Confidential yesterday saying the Gupta brothers, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh, were in the process of moving to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in the wake of “increased scrutiny” of their businesses, especially their contracts with the government or state-owned enterprises.
But the family’s spokesman, Gary Naidoo, said this was “categorically untrue”.
“We have also seen these reports and are pursuing legal action against those that have published the story,” he said.
“The Gupta family are proud to be South African and have been in the country since 1993. Oakbay Investments, the holding company for the Gupta family’s businesses in South Africa, has a strong track record of business success and has reinvested all profits in South Africa.”
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan snubbed the post- Budget breakfast hosted by the Guptaowned New Age, which it had become practice for the finance minister to attend.
Questions have been raised for a number of years over the New Age business breakfasts held in partnership with the SABC, which are attended by cabinet ministers and for which government entities have paid large sums for tables, as well as advertising in the newspaper, whose sales are not measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulation.
Questions have also been raised how a firm in which the Guptas and President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane hold interests, Tegeta Exploration and Resources, became the preferred bidder for a coal mine belonging to Glencore, which supplies Eskom’s Arnot power station.
Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, a surprise appointment to the position last year, took a personal interest in facilitating the deal.
The question of “state capture”
‘We coaches have
our jobs’
and the alleged undue influence of the Guptas in the government was also the topic of debate at the ANC’s January national executive committee lekgotla, where it was raised by SACP second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila.
Since then the ANC has held a meeting with representatives of the family’s businesses at Luthuli House.
Concerns over links between the family and senior ANC leaders, including the socalled “premier league” consisting of provincial chairmen David Mabuza (Mpumalanga), Ace Magashule (Free State) and Supra Mahumapelo ( North West), were also discussed last weekend at the SACP’s central committee, according to a senior leader in the party.
Zuma has been given a rough ride in Parliament over his ties to the family, with the EFF calling him “Mr Zupta” during his State of the Nation Address, before leaving the National Assembly.
The party had also announced its intention to target the family and force it to leave the country, but has since been prohibited by a court order from doing so.