Craven Week. It doesn't have to end this way

I find it strange that, following the announcement that SA Rugby might not have the money to financially support the Craven Week next year, the assumption is that it can’t take place.

Last week the SA Schools Rugby Association (Sasra) met with Saru and announced afterwards that the national federation will not be funding the under-13 Craven Week, the LSEN Week and the under-18 Academy Week next year. There are two other Youth Week festivals – the under-16 and under-18 Girls Weeks (run as one) and the Iqhawe Week, an under-15 festival catering for schools that field four rugby teams or less. No mention of how those two will be funded was included in the statement, and it was stressed that the under-18 Craven Week and the under-16 Grant Khomo Week will be only be helped if the funds were available.

The likelihood of a cash-strapped Saru being able to do that is slim, particularly in the light of the purported R300 million that will be forfeited by pulling out of the Rugby Championships. Hence the assumption that there won’t be a Craven Week next year, followed by the expected reaction: anger and sorrow at the prospect of players losing out on opportunities to secure professional contracts at one end of the spectrum; and a ‘so what?’ attitude from the other end where detractors claim that the week has in any event deteriorated into a rugby development exercise from which many of the top players are excluded.

There’s some merit in both those points of view of course but the bigger issue, I think, is the way in which the Craven Week has become taken over by Saru to such an extent that it’s assumed that it cannot happen without their financial backing.

SA Rugby’s interprovincial youth weeks had been sponsored by Coca-Cola since 1997 but the deal was not renewed in 2018. The authorities are cagey about how much it was worth, but it’s accepted that it must have run into millions, increased every year. Coke’s withdrawal was clearly not only rugby-related – they pulled out of schools cricket and, significantly, out of the Copa Coca-Cola, a massive under-16 soccer competition, as well.

Coca-Cola was a great sponsor of the Craven Week, no question. I attended the week for 30 years and was a beneficiary of their largesse. They made it special for the players more special for coaches and officials and even more special for the VIPs. In the process, it grew flabby and there was an air of entitlement around the place. When Coke pulled the plug that disappeared, unless a new sponsor could be found or Saru footed the bill themselves. Well, there’s no new sponsor on the horizon, and Saru doesn’t have the money, so that’s the end of the week, right?

Wrong. Let’s talk about three of the other mass participation school sports: cricket, hockey and water polo. In all of three, and in most of the other codes played at schools, an annual interprovincial tournament is an accepted part of the programme. The year calendar is drawn up around the dates of those interprovincial weeks. The Khaya Majola cricket week was also sponsored by Coca-Cola and it is being largely funded by Cricket South Africa itself for the time being, the other two have only ever had partial sponsorships and both hockey and water polo don’t currently have big title sponsors with bottomless pockets. Their interprovincial tournaments are self-funded by the parents, along with any other sponsorships that the provinces might be able to secure.

And they run tournaments that dwarf the Craven Week in numbers and complexity. Take water polo, for instance. The 2019 SA Schools interprovincial tournament was held in Johannesburg. It involves boys and girls in all the age groups and is played on a preliminary round-robin and cross pool playoff basis. There were 111 teams, they played 455 matches, at 10 venues. Close to 1500 players were in action and around 350 officials. There was some sponsorship, covering T shirts and subsidising meals. A horde of volunteers – teachers, learners, parents, senior players etc – made it happen, and the participants had to pay to be there.

It’s similar in hockey. Again, there are boys and girls tournaments, at various venues – around the country in this case because you need enough astroturf pitches at each venue – and, again, it’s self-funded, and run by volunteers.

There’s little senior union involvement in the water polo or hockey tournaments. Granted, Saru is far more organised and has way more resources. Unlike the Craven Week, those are school tournaments. They aren’t regarded as part of the development and talent identification pipelines of the national federations to the extent that the rugby and cricket weeks are.

The question, therefore, is why should this be the end of the Craven Week (and the other Saru Youth Weeks)? Step back, make them school tournaments again and let someone else run them, on tight budgets, with parents paying for their children’s participation and local sponsorships easing the burden.

Parents are prepared to make sacrifices to give their children the chance to shine. You see that all over the school calendar. Wealthy and well-connected parents will always arrange sponsorships for the teams that their kids are in– that’s the only way it has ever happened with school sport sponsorships. The numbers aren’t huge and national publicity isn’t the goal, but every bit helps.

And admit that there are those out there who can get the job done. Committees made up of parents and teachers do it all the time, at the Easter Festivals, at water polo, cricket, and hockey tournaments. I know of one school where they are ready to step up right now. They have the track record to support that, having successfully run the girls interprovincial weeks in the past.

In the process, let’s give the rugby weeks back to everyone who is there. They aren’t supposed to be championship events. Saru can find other places to identify talent and dam up the flow that comes through the player development pipeline. Let the dog wag the tail again.