The coaching staff of the Eastern Province Grant Khomo Week
team were being a little disingenuous when they threatened to resign, en masse,
over the changes made by the EP Rugby Union to the team that was selected after
the trials process.
I’ve read since that they have agreed to stay on – in the
interests of the players – which is admirable, but they knew when they accepted
their appointments that the team they would be coaching would not be a
merit-selected one, teams going to the SA Rugby youth weeks haven’t been chosen
that way for decades now.
No-one is saying that they don’t have a point, but demanding
that representative teams be chosen on merit is not helpful in our system.
There’s a quota in place of at least 12 players of colour in
every 23-player squad. There’s nothing in what I’ve read about the matter suggesting
that this was not met in this case. But, it seems the union was not happy with
how it was met. EP President George Malgas, in his response, referred to the
team as not being “representative of EP’s demographics.”
His complaint was that the players put forward came from a
handful of schools from the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, and two schools from Makhanda.
“We were not happy to accept this list. It had not made any provision for
players from the previously disadvantaged areas,” he is quoted in SA Rugby
Magazine as saying.
That’s new, and if it is the way that the senior provincial
federations are going to see things, then the model currently in use no longer
applies. What’s happening in EP, clearly, is that talented black players have
been recruited by the good rugby schools in PE, and in Grahamstown, where they
get the coaching and exposure and end up (very often on merit) in the
provincial system. They wouldn’t do that if they stayed at schools in the rural
and township areas they came from – would Siya Kolisi have eventually captained
the Springboks if he didn’t go to Grey High School?
And that’s what’s happening everywhere in the country. SA
Rugby has handed its responsibility for transformation over to the schools. Is
Mr Malgas going to ensure that proper talented player development takes place in
the areas that he describes as “disadvantaged and rural communities (that) are
systematically deprived of opportunities.”
If he is, and if SA Rugby funds and rolls out similar
programmes in all the provinces, if transformation, in other words, moves from counting
the number of black faces in team photos to real grassroots development, that
would be great. And, in time, players who remain in those areas and don’t get
bursaries to the traditional rugby schools will be included in the selected teams.
The cricket people have been doing it. CSA runs a Hub
development programme in disadvantaged areas and players are coming through.
The 2025 captain of the South African Schools team, Emathi Kitshini, is from Thembalethu High School in George, the first player from the Hub
development program to captain the elite SA Schools side.
So, it can be done. But will SA Rugby go that way any time
soon?
