Cape Town - The steady stream of rugby players leaving South African shores will have far-reaching consequences on several fronts for the game in the country, more so in Cape Town, where the game’s popularity is under siege.
Last week, the Stormers hosted Australia’s Brumbies at Newlands where they looked hopelessly out of depth on home turf and this is perhaps best reflected by the 6-1 try count against them.
It could have been a different story if the Stormers’ on-field resources had not been drained in recent seasons when stand-out players like Andries Bekker, Bryan Habana, Jaque Fourie, Gio Aplon, Francois Louw and Schalk Brits to name a few, took up lucrative contracts abroad.
These players are also crowd-pullers and the modern-day game has evolved in such a way that spectators may attend a match specifically to see a brilliant player in action, rather than a team. Apart from the fact that the Stormers have not been playing attractive rugby all season, the absence of star players collectively could have affected the gate, which was decidedly down on Saturday. Usually, a Super Rugby play-off clash would attract a crowd far in excess of 30 000 fans and on Saturday the gate numbered just under 29 000.
An Australian rugby writer covering the match was moved to remark: “It’s not clear what was most worrying - the sight of so many empty seats at Newlands, or a Stormers’ display that was as close to embarrassing that you’ll get at this stage of the competition.”
The smallish crowd figure will also translate to a loss of revenue which in turn could affect the Stormers’ bargaining ability to pay top-dollar to star players and coaching staff. Presently, the Stormers are recruiting a coach and the potential candidates are all well-known campaigners, mostly with international experience at the highest levels.
Already in recent months, the wage bill at Newlands would have ballooned given the appointments of a Director of Rugby (Gert Smal), a specialist kicking coach (Vlok Cilliers) and a mental coach (Henning Gericke).
Post-match comments on social media websites show that the Stormers’ performance left a sour taste in the mouths of the ‘Newlands Faithful’. Former referee Jonathan Kaplan, writing in his weekly bog, may have summed up the feeling in the Mother City.
“I think they (the Stormers) need to take a good, hard look at their sourcing and selection as well as some major areas of their coaching.”
On the player front, the names of the Western Cape-born Pieter-Steph du Toit and Marcell Coetzee (both Sharks) are on the Stormers’ recruitment radar and they will not come cheaply. However, they will both be crowd-pullers.
The stream of talent going abroad opens the way for fresh faces in the ranks but rather than make an immediate impact on the field - and the scoreboard, their appearances mainly contribute to what Stormers’ officials loosely term a team-building phase. For years now, CEO Rob Wagner and coach Allister Coetzee warded off the slightest hint of criticism after Super Rugby and Currie Cup failures by pointing to the success of WP age-group sides and the number of local players in national teams. Their retort usually ends off with: “That shows you there are sound structures in place”.
The matter of playing unattractive rugby and under-performing had also resulted in losing out on some of the finest local schoolboy talents. One thinks of the Paarl Gymnasium schoolboy, Handré Pollard, whose connections felt that it was not in his interests to play in Cape Town once he left school. He matriculated at the end of 2012, and his advisors could have told him that a Newlands team have never won the Super Rugby title, won one Currie Cup and one Vodacom Cup in a decade. As an ambitious player, the Bulls were the better option, given their three Super Rugby titles, and supplying the most players to the national team around that period of time.
There is no region anywhere in world rugby that enjoys such a talent-rich nursery like the Western Cape. There are an abundance of schools that promote the game efficiently and many boast excellent facilities. Over the years, several international touring sides have held training sessions at various Western Cape schools.
This has helped the schoolboy code to thrive to the extent that excellent crowds are in attendance and, of course, the usual 20 000 plus that turn-out for the annual Paarl schools rugby clash takes some beating. A senior Cape Town-based rugby writer recently commented: “You only have to spend a (Saturday) morning watching schools rugby to know the richness of the game”.
With this sort of talent coming off the conveyor belt year after year it has contributed massively to the success achieved by Western Province teams at age-group levels. All that was required then was for the “sound WP structures” to usher the talent effectively into the senior ranks so that it can perform at higher levels.
Since this not apparently happened in years - judging by the repeated Super Rugby failures, the onus will be on the guardians of the local game to step up to the plate, sooner than later.
ANA