SA travel ban sees new format for Rainbow Cup
THE PRO14 Rainbow Cup will be split into two tournaments after South African sides were denied entry into the UK for the competition.
The new set-up was meant to feature the existing 12 clubs from Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Italy in addition to the Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions.
It was designed to act as a precursor to the permanent involvement of the South African sides from the 2021-22 season, but the Rainbow Cup will now consist of two separate tournaments: one in Europe and the other in South Africa.
Leinster were crowned PRO14 champions in March following a shortened campaign after a decision was made in December to curtail the season to make way for the new Rainbow Cup.
The tournament was viewed as a way to generate much-needed revenue for the game ahead of the new South African sides joining the league next season, while also providing the Springboks players with competitive action ahead of the Lions tour.
It was scheduled to start on Friday, April 23, and continue through to a final on June 19, with the Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions set to stay in a bubble for the second half of the tournament and fly to Europe for games.
That plan had been scuppered after league bosses admitted that, “despite a colossal effort”, no formal approvals were in place to allow the South African teams to enter the UK and Republic of Ireland.
They have now been told they cannot travel because South Africa remains on the United Kingdom’s red list of countries.
Organisers say all options were explored with 12 venues across UK, Ireland and Europe considered as base camps for the South African teams to operate from or to use as a quarantine destination.
SA Rugby also explored another four separate locations with destinations in the Middle East also considered as potential hosts for fixtures.
So, what happens now?
The Rainbow Cup will now operate dual tournaments with no cross-hemisphere fixtures.
The first half of the tournament, which consists of three rounds of local derbies, is able to continue as planned – with the Welsh regions kicking things off this weekend as Cardiff Blues travel to the Ospreys and the Dragons host the Scarlets.
The later rounds, which have seen the fixtures sent to clubs without being released publicly, will continue as planned, only with the South African sides taken out of the equation.
Speaking about the disappointing development, PRO14 CEO Martin Anayi said: “A staggering volume of work has been undertaken to provide a number of proposals and options to accommodate this – all as we navigated the challenges of the second and third waves of Covid19 as well as the South African variant which constantly changed the landscape we were operating in.
“Among our unions, our own staff and SA Rugby there is no more that could have been asked in terms of designing plans that were medically sound, however, there has been no perfect solution found in time to allow for South African teams’ entry into our territories.
“Whilst the outcome is clearly different from what we had intended, our relationship and partnership with SA Rugby has been greatly strengthened and enhanced by this experience.
“We are looking forward to the two Rainbow Cup competitions and in due course sharing our intentions about our future partnership that will be boosted by the experiences and project-planning involved to this point ahead of the 2021/22 season.”
Jurie Roux, CEO of SA Rugby, said: “This is a huge disappointment, but time had simply run out.
“No stone was left unturned to try and find a solution to the challenges - including basing our teams for 10 days in locations in the Middle East or Europe.
“But the pieces of the jigsaw would not fall into place in time to allow us to put those plans into action.”