It began life as the Super 6, with state sides from Australia and New Zealand joined by Western Samoa. When South Africa was readmitted to the international fold it became the Super 10 and when the game went professional at the end of the 1995 World Cup it expanded into the Super 12. Now the Super 12 is dead. Long live the Super 14.
More teams, more games, more whingeing about crossing time zones and more misery for South African fans. It hardly seems appropriate to mention that this year the southern-hemisphere rugby season begins exactly one week after the opening round of Six Nations matches in the northern hemisphere. After all, the 14 protagonists have been playing warm-up matches for three weeks already.
Oddly enough, the only team to leave this country for practice this season was the Cheetahs. Coach Rassie Erasmus shrewdly arranged a match against the other newcomers, the Western Force in Perth, and won the battle of the neophytes. In previous seasons the Sharks, Stormers, Cats and Bulls have spent time in places as culturally diverse as Dubai and London, but this time around they have been content to scrap among themselves.
What they have not seen fit to do at the time of writing is to sign the participation agreement for the Super 14. There’s a very good reason for their reluctance and it is inextricably linked to the battle for the presidency of the South African Rugby Union (Saru).
In three weeks’ time the unions will be asked to choose between the incumbent, Brian van Rooyen, and his challenger, Sharks president Oregan Hoskins. That’s assuming that Van Rooyen has not by then stepped down voluntarily from office.
Why does this affect the participation agreements for the five Super 14 franchises?
Well, remember that it was Van Rooyen who negotiated the deal for Super 14 2007, wherein the newly created Southern Spears will replace the bottom-ranked South African side from the 2006 log table.
The Spears — an amalgam of three unions from the Southern and Eastern Cape — have been guaranteed two seasons in the competition as a quid pro quo for allowing the Cheetahs to compete this year. So far, so politically correct, but there’s a problem.
The participation agreement includes a clause that says the bottom-ranked side of 2006 must perforce donate its 10 best players to the Spears to strengthen their squad for 2007. This raises two issues. Firstly, how poor must the Spears squad be to need ”bolstering” with players from a relegated side? (Answer: very.) Secondly, what if the 10 players in question are in the middle of a two-year contract with their present team and neither they nor their union wish to break said contract?
Now consider the scenario where Van Rooyen, the broker of the deal, is no longer involved with Saru. Bear in mind that he is already under investigation over matters of poor corporate governance and has specifically been criticised for signing deals without seeking a mandate from his management committee to do so. Suddenly the position of the Southern Spears seems a little tenuous.
Finally, consider the scenario with Hoskins in charge in place of Van Rooyen. The new man will be coming in with a mandate from the unions to clear up the mess left behind by the outgoing president. Hoskins is a highly respected lawyer and the first thing his legal mind is likely to turn to is the issue of contracts and, in the broader sense of the word, deals.
And so we return to the Super 14 with a better understanding of why the participation agreements have not been signed. Not one of the five incumbents agreed with Van Rooyen’s deal with the Spears and in time-honoured African fashion they are making like ostriches, hoping that when they lift their heads out of the sand the Spears will simply have gone away.
Thus far the only real evidence of the Spears’ existence has been a marketing campaign to promote the name. They have even gone so far as to name their cheerleaders ”The Spearleaders”. But insofar as a rugby team ought to be something more than the sum of an ad spend, they are actually as insubstantial as morning mist.
They have been hammered by three of the current franchises in warm-up games, scoring no points at all against the Cheetahs, and one solitary try against the Stormers. They will be in limbo now until the Currie Cup begins in June, at which point they will join the premier division in order to spend five months honing their skills for the 2007 Super 14.
It is not too late to stop all this nonsense right now. When Van Rooyen took over as president two years ago one of the first things he did was to announce that henceforth the five major unions would compete in the Super 12, under their provincial names. If he had followed through with that threat he might now be looking forward to another term in office instead of seeking a dignified exit.