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 1st 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:
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:
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 1st
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?
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