Cape Town - The Rassie Erasmus documentary currently on television includes a clip of the glory days of the Cheetahs when they won the full-strength Currie Cup three years in a row under Rassie and current Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber.
In fact, last Saturday I watched the movie, replete with a gleeful Ollie le Roux famously smoking a cigar minutes after the final whistle of the 2005 triumph, and that made it all the more startling to read in Rapport the next day that the Cheetahs are in such a parlous state that they are battling to pay their electricity bills and some players’ salaries have been paid late.
The Cheetahs are now looking at moving their home games in the Currie Cup from the Free State Stadium to club venues such as Shimlas to save costs.
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How can it be that such a proud union has become a poor relation? In high places, heads should hang in shame that the Cheetahs have been relegated to the status of the Pumas and Griquas, and I say this with respect to those two unions, who have their own struggles to stay afloat but always punch above their weight.
It all started, of course, with the decision by SA Rugby in late 2020 to boot the Cheetahs (and the Kings) out of the PRO 14 to make way for the Stormers, Sharks, Lions and Bulls for an expanded competition that would be named the United Rugby Championship.
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Those four unions had exited Super Rugby as South Africa realigned itself to the northern hemisphere. Incidentally, Super Rugby had also seen the Cheetahs treated deplorably. They were yanked in and out of that competition as it expanded and contracted and were
always seen as the expendable SA team, and they were shunted to the PRO 14 for this very reason.
The Cheetahs are treated so shabbily because they are financially poorer than the teams from Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria. They are lesser money-spinners and as long as the game has been professional, the Cheetahs have
been on the back foot and have perpetually struggled to hold on to the magnificent players they produce.
The Sharks, in particular, unashamedly pillaged the Free State. It started in the ’90s with Andre Joubert, Vleis Visagie, Henry Honiball, Pieter Muller and Ollie le Roux, and continued with the likes of Ruan Pienaar, Frans Steyn, Coenie Oosthuizen, AJ Venter, Andries Strauss, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis ...
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I spoke to current Cheetahs coach Hawies Fourie about their struggle to say above the bread line. Here is one stark fact from Fourie: “We were kicked out of the PRO 14 in September 2020 ... by January 2021 we had lost 23 players and 15 were of top quality.”
Thus began a dark patch because not only were players leaving for better opportunities but the Cheetahs could not attract new ones.
Fourie explains: “The difficult thing is that we no longer attract the players who are not starting regularly at the Sharks, Bulls, Lions and Stormers. They used to come to us to prove themselves but they are not coming anymore because they now play in the Currie Cup for those big unions and hope that an injury in the URC team opens the door for them, whereas if they came to us, we basically only play in the Currie Cup.”
The Cheetahs have had something of a lifeline this year when a (temporary) place was found for them in the (second-tier) European Challenge Cup, but in a sense, this has been the devil in disguise because it has practically put them in the poor house.
The invitation came with the clause that the European teams would not travel to Bloemfontein and the Cheetahs had to stage their “home” games in Europe.
They chose the Italian city of Parma for this purpose and each of their four home games there cost them R400 000.
Rapport says the Cheetahs felt the pinch in Parma to the degree that kit could only be washed every second day to save on the laundry bill.
“We are trying to stay optimistic and we try and look after ourselves with the help of our great sponsor in Toyota, who are always willing to help build our brand and keep us alive, but it is a struggle, there is no two ways about it.
“It is getting increasingly difficult and if we can’t get back into an international competition within the next year, the quality of our players and our ability to compete will continue to decrease.”
@Mike_Greenaway67