The resignation of Springbok coach Andre Markgraaff is bound to affect the players, which is good news for South Africa’s opponents in the tough season ahead
RUGBY:Jon Swift
AS the dust rises in ever thickening clouds to turn whatever hint there was of transparency in South African rugby into an even murkier soup, it is well to study what the implications of the resignation of coach Andre Markgraaff are.
The man who arrived amid a howl of controversy and left with a tear-stained whimper of self-pity, has done the game in this country a vast disservice. He has lost this country its most successful and popular captain in Francois Pienaar, been instrumental in the resignation of an honourable and respected manager in Morne du Plessis, insisted on selecting hooker Jan Tromp for the national side despite the outrage of the majority of the country’s citizens about elevating a man jailed for killing a black teenager to Test status, and been behind some highly questionable squad selections.
Against this, Markgraaff has lost a Sanzar series, given the All Blacks their first series victory on a tour of South Africa, and then come out on top in tours to the Argentine, France and in the single Test against Wales.
All of this is a matter of record. So, it would seem, in the light of his hasty, self-imposed exile from the game, is his espousal of the kind of racist thinking which has continued to tarnish South African rugby’s image in the post-apartheid era.
There is still the ministerial probe into the inner workings of the game at top level to come and, in the light of South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) president Louis Luyt’s cover-up of the tape, this takes on an urgency that overrides any reluctance of Sarfu to become willing participants in this fact-finding mission.
More than at any time in the past, Sports Minister Steve Tshwete’s insistence on opening the closed doors of rugby administration assumes added importance. For, at present, the image of transparency in rugby is roughly akin to a sneak kick in the head in the nether regions of a loose scrum.
The worst of it all though is that it reflects badly on the players, who face a season of Super 12, Currie Cup, the World Cup Sevens in Hong Kong, as well as the tri-nation series against New Zealand and Australia and a tour by the British Lions.
What Markgraaff’s indiscretions and Sarfu’s reluctance to deal with them in public has done is make the going for anyone taking over the Springbok coaching reins extremely difficult, and make a job which should be the premier position in this country one that has been severely tainted.
The whole affair is bound to affect the players in some way. Even if it is only from the point of view of the bulk of this country’s citizens and their perceptions of a game that was, after all, designed to be played by gentlemen and their sons.
And if, as Markgraaff continues to contend, the recording by Griqua captain Andre Bester was an attempt at blackmail, why was the whole issue not taken to the courts immediately? Certainly, if these allegations are ever tested before law, it would give rise to a re-examination of all the aspects of contracts between players and unions, and a formalisation and standardisation of the manner in which these are conducted.
In this regard, it is well to recall the wrangling which has accompanied James Small – himself a casualty of Markgraaff’s ire during last season’s Springbok selections – and his desire to settle in Cape Town.
As one of the contracted players from the victorious 1995 World Cup squad – only Chester Williams opted out of the lucrative cash deal and remained a free agent – Small is paid in part by Sarfu and in part by the union he plays for.
It meant that Natal were quite within their rights to hold him to the contract he had with them and demand compensation from Western Province for the services of one of their biggest draw-cards. But there is confusion surrounding the R250 000 cap Sarfu imposed on player transfers and then withdrew in favour of a system of repayment for player movements which has still to be formalised.
There is nothing basically wrong with a transfer fee as a business agreement. But it does tend to leave the players shackled to a province not necessarily of their choice. It also raises the argument of whether a player can really be made to play. Form and fitness are, after all, things that the player himself provides.
The World Cup contracts were hastily signed by Sarfu at a time when professionalism was still a banned entity in world rugby and, indeed, that haste has led to agreements which, while they ushered in payment for players at a level never dreamt of as little as five years ago, must be considered suspect in many respects.
Chief of these is the amount the players were granted on a three-year basis. It is no revelation that some of the World Cup squad have failed to repay this bounty and are not even considered for their provincial teams.
Then there is the aspect of Pienaar, Joel Stransky and Rudolph Straueli -to name just three – who have opted to give up their Sarfu contracts and head for the real money overseas.
All of this must be seen in the light of current players in the Springbok side who were not included in the World Cup largesse, earning less than their squad counterparts who, in some cases, cannot even make the Springbok bench.
It is with this legacy of murkiness in thought patterns that pervades from payments to attitudes that South Africa’s top players go into another tough season of provincial and international competition.
The All Blacks and Wallabies must be chuckling into their beer. Fran Cotton, who manages the Lions 23 years after playing in the all-conquering touring side under Willie-John McBride, must be positively delighted.
But then, though the players will undoubtedly take the brunt of all the controversy and underhand manoeuvring, it was surely time that rugby was cleaned out top to bottom anyway.