Why run an under-18 elite rugby camp now?

The announcement of an under-18 Elite Player Development squad of 53 by SA Rugby this week raises a quite a few red flags.

They will be at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport from Thursday 27 February to Sunday March 1^st and an SA Rugby statement says, “The main objectives of the camps are to assess the players’ physical and technical abilities and to guide them with the goal of preparing them to advance through the structures in future. The players will participate in a series of training sessions over the four days, where they will have the opportunity to work with a handful of coaches within the SA Rugby structures.”

There will be, we are told, similar under-16 and under-17 camps later in the season.

The ruggas.co.za website, in its compelling weekly Ruggas TV vlog, makes a number of telling observations on the issue. Take a look at it, it’s in Afrikaans and if you understand it, you don’t really need read this piece any further. I fully concur with what they have to say. The link is:

http://ruggas.co.za/ruggas-tv-episode-3-year-2/

For those who don’t speak Afrikaans, here’s a synopsis, with a few of my own observations added in.

The first and obvious question is why? Seeing that the main objective is to assess the players and guide their preparation for the year ahead and seeing the majority of those named come from the usual places: the professionally-run elite rugby schools (more on that later) why not leave those functions to the schools themselves. They know the boys, have been doing those measurements anyway and have shown themselves to be more than capable of putting young players on skills and physical conditioning programmes.

Why take them to Stellenbosch (at great cost) on the weekend before their season begins – it will already have started for some – when they can learn the same things at home?

The matter of costs, the Ruggas crew suggests, could explain the lopsided composition of the group. You can see their names here:

http://ruggas.co.za/sa-rugby-outline-objectives-for-u-18-high-performance-camp/

Twenty of the 53 players named are from Western Province, which will cut the travel bill; the Blue Bulls and Sharks supply six each; nine are from Grey College, which is about right; while the Golden Lions, despite being highly competitive at the Craven Week in most years and a rich source of players of colour, only have three representatives.

I rather believe it’s further proof of the favourable treatment that WP gets at this level. The same treatment that allows them two sides at the Craven Week when all the other provinces have been cut to only one. Three or four of the top 10 schools in the land are in the Western Cape, sure, but that really doesn’t mean that there aren’t good players in other schools around the country.

Then there’s the question of establishing an elite group before the season has kicked off. I presume it is made up of players who were at the under-18 and under-16 Youth Weeks in 2019. What guarantee is there that they will be the best around in 2020? Will they all even make the 1^st teams at their schools this year?

And what about the players who have been left out? Aren’t they being told they are not good enough, before a ball has even been kicked in anger? Are we being told that the Craven Week has become irrelevant (I think it is going that way), if not, why not choose this squad in July?

It’s one of those exercises that sounds quite clever, but really isn’t. It’s closing the net when they should be trying to spread it wider. What about the late developers, what about the isolated nuggets at the weaker rugby schools that we all know are there?

And most importantly, what about the potential stars who see their exclusion as rejection and either lose their motivation, or start looking for overseas options?

Give for the right reasons

The English idiomatic expression about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing has its origin in the Christian bible and it refers to charitable deeds. Matthew 6:3 reads: "but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

It’s an instruction that you should give in secret, and without an expectation of praise or reward for doing so, and it’s relevant in the current ongoing debate about the recruitment of star rugby players by schools.

You’d have to be a miserable grouch to deny those young individuals the chance to live a better life, and for some of them to develop into players who will one day represent their provinces and even the country. But then please call what you are doing an elite rugby recruitment programme, or something like that, and confess that you are conducting your search in the poorest areas because that’s where the needs are greatest and the chances of a good return on your investment are best.

I saw a statement from a school involved in a player poaching controversy this week in which they claim to be funding boys who are in desperate need of help and, in the same paragraph, admit that contracts were signed to the effect that the boys would come to them when they progressed to high school.

That’s not charity, that’s giving with strings attached. It might work from a rugby point of view, but it’s the left and right hand working very closely together. It not philanthropy it’s patronage. The boys in question didn’t stick to the deal and have gone to a rival school. Blue murder was screamed as a result!

I’m the last person who is allowed to preach, but seeing I started off with a biblical verse, let me end with a short sermon.

We should all be doing good wherever we can. And because inequality is so great and schooling is so poor everywhere in our country, and because we are doomed if our children don’t receive a decent education, education is a good place to start.

Massive sums of money are being spent on attracting talented players to schools so that their rugby teams can be better. Fine, if that’s what you want to do, but you don’t get credit for addressing poverty and the inequality in educational standards by doing that. There are better, more sustainable, ways to spend your money

Give because it’s the right thing to do, and don’t let your right hand know what the left one is doing.

It's starting at primary school level now

Here we go again. The start of the rugby season is still a month away and already we have one school refusing to play another. It’s about player poaching, again, and while it’s disappointing, no-one should really be surprised.

The schools involved, DHS and Glenwood, have been grouchy neighbours up on the Berea for a long time and Glenwood can’t seem to keep away from this kind of controversy. There’s been a perception for a while now that the school looks for talented players in other places and tries to lure them to their ranks. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but certainly none of the top schools in Joburg will play any kind of sport against them. It’s not the first time DHS has called off relations, for the same reason.

So, not an original story. What’s different this time is the age group level at which this one is playing out. The boys involved are in grade 8 – 13 year-olds - and, it seems, deals were done and money was paid during their primary school years already.

There’s a memorandum of understanding that was signed by the heads of the boys-only schools to the effect that they will not approach players who are at other schools. It’s well-intentioned, although it’s significant that most of the recent well-publicised controversies, including this one, involve schools that are signatories to the agreement.

That said, there seems to be an acceptance that when it comes to grade 7s deciding on which high school they will be going to, the gloves are off and it’s an open market that everyone can participate in. OK, but I have expressed the (very much minority) opinion that at such a young age in particular, educational and ethical values should still apply. I have been to the under-13 Craven Week and seen the talent scouts from the top (and wannabee top) schools standing on the touchlines, clipboards in hand and cheque books in the back pocket, running their eyes over the young flesh on display like trainers and breeders at the thoroughbred yearling sales.

It was only a matter of time before things went awry and these practices hit the headlines.

What happened In Durban is happening in other places too. Briefly, DHS paid for the schooling at Glenwood Prep (unfortunately named, it turned out), of two KZN Primary Schools rugby players on the understanding that they will go to DHS in grade 8. They reneged and are at Glenwood Boys’ High now, hence the outrage.

In the face of the fierce competition for the top primary school players, the recruitment people at the high schools have to act quickly to sign the right 13-year olds up, and they need to have the right deals to offer. A way of getting around that is to get in 1^st and seal a commitment while the child is in grade 7, or even in grade 6. Pay for his primary schooling and contract him to come to your high school eventually.

Now, I’m totally in agreement with the principle of offering financial assistance to needy parents who cannot afford to send their talented offspring to a good school. I’ll even go along with the idea of funding primary school education with the aim of giving a bright young child a solid grounding so that he or she has a better chance of success in secondary school.

That’s not what’s happening with these rugby players. This is the win-at-all-costs attitude sinking to new moral depths. The practice should be outlawed and no-one should play against schools who subscribe to it, whether they are enrolling the children they have groomed themselves, or stolen them from someone else.  

Are the rugby youth weeks necessary?

Changes to the arrangements for this year’s youth rugby interprovincial weeks were announced this week and, it seems, there are issues at SA Rugby and its affiliate the SA Schools Rugby Association, that are deeper than just the financial woes associated with the loss of Coca-Cola as the sponsor of their annual winter Youth Week programme.

A few years ago they grouped together the under-13 Craven Week and the under-16 Grant Khomo Week; and the under-18 Academy and Craven Weeks - each pair to be played at the same venue – because it was more economical that way. A unified organising committee and reduced travel arrangements, along with the economies of scale would make for cheaper tournaments.

That was true. They are sticking to that, but the groupings have changed. The u-13 Craven and u-18 Academy Weeks will run together in Johannesburg this year, and the u-18 Craven and under-16 Grant Khomo Weeks will be on at the same time in Port Elizabeth.

No reasons have been officially given for the re-arrangement. The unofficial word going around seems to indicate that have it all wrong. They need the two elite high school weeks to be together, apparently, because of the people who have to attend them. That translates into the SA Rugby big-wigs who want to watch them. Sure, there are talent identification people who need to be there, but my experience is that there are many VIP hangers-on at these occasions who don’t. Their travel and accommodation costs are what are gobbling up the available funding.

And, you have to ask, why relegate the under-18 “B” Academy Week to a minor event (it isn’t budgeted for by SA Rugby this year, I read somewhere). Selection margins are small, and factors other than only merit go into the choosing of teams – more of that later – so saying that the important people don’t need to watch those teams play seems to be a crazy narrowing down of the talent identification process.

As for the under-13 Craven Week, why not just tank it, or turn it into two regional festivals, North and South? The relevance of a week at this level has often been questioned on rugby and physiological grounds, with research pointing out how few under-13 provincial players go on to perform at the same level in high school.

Then you have to wonder what the ongoing value of the under-18 Craven Week is. The announcement of the new arrangements includes a commitment to SA Rugby's Strategic Transformation Plan 2030. This means that each squad of 23 players has to field a minimum of 12 players of colour. It is also stated that foreign players at SA Schools cannot be included in those numbers any more.

I have often stressed that transformation of the game is non-negotiable. How it’s done is the issue, however, and forcing quotas onto elite teams without having done the developmental hard work at the levels below is just daft. Increasing the size of the quotas doesn’t mean there will be more developing of players of colour who can perform at those levels.

If the Craven Week is to be regarded as one of the places at which that development is done, or as an opportunity to identify players with the potential to be further developed, that’s fine. It just won’t be the elite under-18 rugby tournament anymore.

Some argue that it hasn’t been that for a while now. The big inter-school festivals –the Noord-Suid weekend in Pretoria and the Wildeklawer gathering in Kimberley – have taken on that role.

The 1^st teams of all the top schools in the country are at those, and while there is no 12:23 quota in place there are players of colour in action there, chosen entirely on merit. Most of those will also be at the Craven Week later on in the year.

The talent scouts are at those events now as are, worryingly, the recruitment people of many overseas rugby clubs.

Let’s face it, the Youth Weeks aren’t that much of a big deal anymore and shuffling the deck chairs around isn’t really going to stop the ship from sinking.