Rugby: Jon Swift
RUGBY’S decision to open the doors to paid players has produced a xenophobia seemingly more iconoclastic than anything ever dreamed up by the human engineering of the apartheid system.
The latest ruling effectively ends any contribution foreign players may make to the domestic leagues worldwide … if they want to continue playing international rugby.
It means that the French contingent of Natal’s Thierry Lacroix and Oliver Roumat and Laurent Cabannes of Western Province — all three of whom have made a massive contribution to the Currie Cup season just past — will in all likelihood be missing come next winter.
And the South Africans and Australians — Naas Botha and David Campese are just two of many examples — who have made the annual exodus to Italy, will now have to eat their pasta and sip their espressos at home.
The International Rugby Board has dubbed men of this ilk “12-month players”, a phrase that has all the unsavoury implications of an armed alien in the Comores. It also effectively means that players can be professional yet not be allowed the free access to practise as such.
It is an interesting, if narrow, view that will surely get some airing in the courts and, one would suspect, a sympathetic hearing from various legislatures. A player is held to a year-round contract and then denied the chance to earn a living for a good part of that year.
It is undoubtedly with upright and honourable intentions that the ruling has been brought into place. But there could have surely been some more forward thinking on the issue.
Take next season’s Currie Cup as a fair example.
The format has been extended to cover not just this season’s six-team elite, but 14 provinces in two sections playing home-and-away league, leading to the top four being involved in a knock-out play-off for the coveted trophy.
Holders Natal, Western Province, Transvaal, Northerns, Free State and Eastern Province are there of right. To this line-up have been added Border, Western Transvaal, Griqualand West, South Eastern Transvaal, Boland, Northern Free State (incorporating Eastern Free State), Eastern Transvaal (incorporating Vaal Triangle) and South Western Districts.
On the face of it, this has all the making of the slaughter of the innocents. Even Doc Craven’s arguments about bringing the big teams to the platteland so that future playing generations can see the big stars first- hand cannot immediately erase that fact.
Simply put, some of the new Currie Cup sides will not be competitive. And will probably remain this way for a number of seasons.
Applying restrictions to player movement in a constructive rather than a contsrictive manner could go a long way towards alleviating this problem.
It would require rugby applying a system akin to the draft method which prevails in American sports, whereby the top players — in this case foreign imports as well as those coming out of the South African Schools and Craven Week — are, in a sense, put up for auction.
The weakest sides on previous results are given first option. This could be further enhanced in this country’s rugby by restricting the numbers of foreign players allowed. For example, the top two sides would be allowed none, the next two on the log one and so on down to the wooden spoonists.
Provided the wages are right, the professional player will be prepared to pull any jersey over his head come Saturday. Think of the impact a Roumat, a Cabannes or a Lacroix would have in Kimberley, Witbank or Oudtshoorn, and the value players of this stature would have in passing on their knowledge to the budding players in these areas.
The IRB — and the South African Rugby Football Union – – have clearly not thought the issue through logically and rationally in the light of the new dispensation in the game.
It looks very much like a fatally flawed system has been replaced by another.