Provincial schools selections - a complicated matter

 

The Golden Lions schools rugby teams that will be going to SA Rugby’s Youth Weeks in the holidays have been announced.

There are 115 players in the five teams chosen – U18 Craven Week, U18 Academy Week, U17 Welpies, U6 Grant Khomo Week and U16 Welpies – and 90 of them come from five schools. Noordheuwel has the most with 22, there are 19 each from KES and Jeppe, 17 from Helpmekaar and 13 from Monument.

The other 25 players come from a further seven schools, with Parktown (seven) and Marais Viljoen (four) providing the most.

There’s nothing very unusual about that distribution, although Monument usually dominates the selections and hasn’t done so this year. That’s going to raise some eyebrows, as are the high numbers coming through from KES and Jeppe.

In the Craven Week team, there are seven players from Helpmekaar, six each from Jeppe and Noordheuwel, three from KES and one from Monumnet.

KES, at 1^st team level, beat both Noordheuwel and Helpmekaar this year; Jeppe lost to Noordheuwel and to Monument. The relative representation from those schools in the Craven Week team doesn’t reflect that. Not that it should, necessarily - we know there can be great players in weak teams – but the reality is that the racial quota requirements in place go in the favour of the schools with higher numbers of quality black players in their teams. Noordheuwel had two players of colour in their ranks when they played Jeppe earlier this season, Helpmekaar had none against KES last week. KES and Jeppe, and Parktown, have a majority of players of colour in their teams and, although those teams haven’t been too consistent this year, they have produced results indicating that those boys can play.

In case you are wondering just how the quota system affects selection, here’s an explanation given to me by a Craven Week coach a few years ago (at the time that the requirement of 11 black players was increased to 12 – more than 50% of the team):

Every 23-man squad, at all the Youth Weeks, has to have at least 12 players of colour in its ranks. By the end of the second round of fixtures, every player must have played a full game, with everyone getting a chance to start a match.

Those arrangements aren’t there simply to give everyone a game. They are designed to prevent the coaches from taking a “first choice XV and group of reserves” approach. The reasons are obvious. There’s a perception that some provinces will pick their 12 reserves and use them only as replacements while the 11 first choice boys will play all the time.

There's a veiled accusation of racism in that, probably justified in some cases. It has, however, changed the dynamics of team selection and match day lineups drastically.

Eight of the first day’s starting lineup have to sit out the second game, which means that you have to, in effect, chose two separate teams.

You pair players, the coach explained – when A sits out, he will be replaced by B, hopefully without weakening the team, and so on. That changes things. You no longer pick the best 23 overall; your selection has to take the “two team” reality into consideration.

In rugby, everywhere else in the world, you select your bench to cover positions in case of injury, or to provide impact late in the game. Not at SA Rugby’s Youth Weeks. There the coaches are not allowed to make tactical substitutions in the first game, and in the second outing only the seven players who played on day one can be substituted, unless there are injuries.

Given the way rugby has developed around the world, we are asking our Craven Week coaches to manage a different game to that which has evolved, world-wide, in recent years.

That’s the reality behind the numbers. The schools that have embraced transformation and are developing black players in numbers will have the most representatives. Star players of colour recruited by others will be there too.

Once that exercise is completed the selectors can look at the white players and try to find a balance that will give the team the best chance of success. It hasn’t been an objectively fair process for a long time and it’s unlikely that it ever will be again.

That’s why the festivals involving all the players from the elite schools, like Noord-Suid and Wildeklawer have gained in popularity, and relevance.

I’ll be rooting for the Golden Lions at the Craven Week. I hope they’ve got the selections right this time. It will make a nice change if they have.