Pretoria – The Bulls and Springbok rugby have been dealt a heavy blow with news that hooker Chiliboy Ralepelle will leave Loftus Versfeld at the end of October to take up a lucrative two-year contract with French powerhouse club Toulouse.
While the Bulls were hard at work on Thursday trying to extinguish the raging inferno of a mass player exodus out of Loftus, blaming it on the strength of the euro and yen, the real reasons as to why Ralepelle opted to leave the Bulls and South Africa apparently stem from years of mistreatment and being used as a political pawn by previous national team coaches, and to a lesser extent, the Bulls.
Last month, Ralepelle had seriously considered extending his stay in Pretoria for a further two years until 2015, but after Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer did not offer him a Springbok contract, he decided to join Europe’s most successful club in November.
In an effort to exonerate themselves over Ralepelle’s decision to leave, the Bulls on Thursday looked to blame the decision on Meyer not awarding Ralepelle a Springbok contract.
Ralepelle was not given a Springbok contract even though he is arguably the best hooker in the country along with the Cheetahs’ Adriaan Strauss in this year’s Super Rugby competition, while Sharks hooker Bismarck du Plessis was given a Springbok contract even though he has not played Super Rugby since injuring his knee last August.
The Blue Bulls high-performance manager, Xander Janse van Rensburg, said they had done their best to keep Ralepelle at Loftus Versfeld, but he had decided “it was time to move on”.
Ralepelle, whose contract with Toulouse is rumoured to be between R6-8 million, joins an alarming list of Springboks who have opted to leave Loftus to take up lucrative offers overseas.
Ralepelle has only commanded a starting berth at the Bulls in the past two seasons after the departure of Gary Botha to Toulouse.
In a twist of irony, the very same Toulouse have opted not to renew Botha’s contract and instead vigorously pursued Ralepelle to bolster their star-studded team. Toulouse boast some of the best players in the French Top 14 league with the likes of French internationals Thierry Dusautoir, Yannick Nyanga, Maxime Medard, Vincent Clerc, Louis Picamoles, former All Black Luke McAllister, former Wallaby Luke Burgess and Springbok prop Gurthrö Steenkamp.
Besides falling victim to the reluctance of three Springbok coaches to use his obvious talents, Ralepelle’s discontent at the Bulls would have been exacerbated by being overlooked for the Bulls captaincy at the beginning of last year when he had seemed like the firm favourite among teammates and fans to replace Victor Matfield.
Furthermore, Toulouse also enticed Ralepelle by offering his younger brother Ngoako a contract to join their academy after the Bulls had overlooked the young flank who played two years of first team rugby at Pretoria Boys High School and represented the Blue Bulls Academy side last year.
Ralepelle said in a statement that he had “always wanted to play abroad”.
“I also feel that I will develop further as a rugby player in France, where different set skills will be required. I can only improve by playing over there.
“The Bulls were my life for so long, so of course I will miss it, but I have peace of mind about my decision to move abroad. There are no ill feelings on either side, it was just time for me to move on,” Ralepelle said in the statement.
Springboks Morné Steyn, Wynand Olivier, Jacques Potgieter, Zane Kirchner and Juandré Kruger all announced this year that they would be leaving Loftus, with Potgieter already having left. Kruger’s contract with the Bulls expires at the end of the month.
Kruger’s representatives had apparently alerted the Bulls to the fact that the lock’s contract expires in the middle of the Super Rugby season, but the Bulls had done nothing until two months ago when they offered Kruger an extension until the end of the Super Rugby season.
Kruger has not signed the extension and will probably not be available for the rest of the Bulls campaign as they fight for a home semi-final spot, leaving them desperately thin at No5.
The Bulls also announced they were at an advanced stage of negotiations to retain the services of Springbok scrumhalf Jano Vermaak who, too, is being pursued by Toulouse after the Bulls had initially offered him a contract renewal with half the remuneration of his current contract. – Pretoria News