John Goliath
RUGBY boss Jurie Roux is hoping the South African Rugby Union’s (Saru) new Strategic Transformation Plan will change the mindset of coaches who select white players above black players “because they are bigger”.
Saru chief executive Roux announced details of the plan yesterday, which has been created to achieve a target that will see players of colour make up half of all teams at Currie Cup, Super Rugby and international levels by 2019, when the Rugby World Cup will take place in Japan. This year’s edition will be played in England in September and October.
Transformation has been a big talking point in South African rugby since unity in 1992, and the lack of genuine playing opportunities for black players at all levels has been an issue that Saru has battled to resolve over the years.
The junior national teams are full of talented youngsters, but they are sometimes overlooked at provincial level and then disappear off the radar. That is why coaches at Super Rugby and Springbok level haven’t had enough “black talent” to work with and to select.
Roux told journalists while presenting the plan yesterday: “What sometimes happens is that coaches take the easy route. They don’t invest in a player.
“On average, the black players at Craven Week are between 5-10kg lighter than a white player. So what do they do when they get to Under-19 level? Coaches pick a guy who is heavier, even though the other guy has got more talent, because he is under pressure to win.
“That is where the mindset must change, and that is where the buy-in must happen.
“Yes, there is some catching up to do, but let’s work with the programme to get it. And this forces the coaches to work with the programme.”
But Roux was at pains to explain that the plan is not a quota system.
As Saru president Oregan Hoskins said in a statement: “It is definitely not only about the number of black players on the field. It has six focus areas: demographic representation; access to the game; skills and capacity development; performance; community development and social responsibility; and corporate governance.”
“Nobody is standing behind us with a cane, we want 50 percent representation,” Roux said. “These are the targets that we are setting ourselves as a federation.
“We, like any other company in this country, have got to do our duty in terms of transformation. We can’t ignore that responsibility.
“Giving everybody an equal opportunity will give us a better organisation, better teams and will tick all of the boxes.”
Roux said the targets are achievable, as the Currie Cup-winning Western Province side of 2014 had an “average of 40 percent black representation and a black coach and captain”.
But Saru is going to target schools to “implant” its plan, especially in the Eastern Cape, where most of the black African rugby players in the country hail from.
Four academies have been set up in Boland, Eastern Province, Border and South Western Districts to make sure these players stay in the system when they leave those schools.
“One of the mistakes we have made in this country is that we are taking players out of their environment. At the moment, a kid from the Eastern Cape is being taken to a rugby school in the Western Cape,” Roux said.
“He is away from his home and his parents and his cultural environment. He doesn’t have that support system, and then we expect him to perform. So our drive is to keep players within their environment.”