Big Points for Rugby Development

With legislation pending in parliament, by the end of this year it will become law for sports to transform at a much more rapid rate. The guardians of the game in our country have already set out to ensure that rugby, one of the more controversial sports when it comes to developing players of colour, is not left behind.

The rationale behind the dramatic shift in thinking in the sport is the recently signed Transformation Charter, the brainchild of Dr Willie Basson. It will be presented to all the provinces in the country by the end of the year and implementation will start in early 2007.

Basson’s Charter, which sets out a ‘scorecard’ for each measure of development for every rugby province, will see that the sport is moulded according to the demographics of the country. This will be applicable to the teams themselves, as well as to the rugby union’s boardroom and administrative staff. Although there have already been some major changes on the field, the issue now is to rid the sport of the stigma of not wanting to transform.

In the past two years, the SA under-19 and under-21 teams have dominated international junior rugby, winning world titles. The teams have consisted of more players of colour than white players. As such, according to Dr Basson, the transformation issue in rugby is no longer a moral issue, but now is necessary if the sport is to survive in South Africa. Dr Basson believes that rugby’s traditional resources are dwindling and with the threat of losing more potential players to the 2010 World Cup soccer - which is likely to draw players away from the sport - they need to react proactively.

“It is still largely a white sport,” says Dr Basson. “The only provinces where coloureds and blacks traditionally play rugby are the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape, where effective structures were established during the apartheid era.” But, in other provinces, development has not gone much beyond the urban areas, and rugby does not reflect the demographic profiles of these areas. Soccer and netball both have a huge support base in all parts of the country, and sports like baseball, basketball and volleyball are all growing.

“We have had 12 years of over-simplification, with the emphasis on how many blacks are in the Springbok team, and there has been a total disregard for what drives the transformation process. We need to keep the current basis, but at the same time, we have to explore and develop the vast pool of untapped resources,” he says. “There is no country in the world that has the sort of potential we have - if we tap into these resources and develop them properly, I believe we will become unbeatable.”

But times are indeed changing. Last month, the Blue Bulls picked an under-19 team with 11 black players – something unheard of in the northern part of the country. They have also implemented a policy where the recruitment process focuses almost completely on developing black Springboks.

Still, it is off the field where the changes need to be felt a lot quicker, and that is a major challenge. Provincial teams are already finding it easier to play more players of colour in their Currie Cup teams, while the initiative that started so many years ago could well be closer to giving South Africa its first black captain.

The player tipped for that job is 20-year old Chiliboy Ralepelle. A product of Pretoria Boys High, Ralepelle was ‘forced’ into rugby in his birth town of Tzaneen, mainly because there was no other sport he could play at the local primary school.

But it was a sport that he excelled in, and upon moving to Pretoria Boys, the same school that current Bok captain John Smit attended, he became an automatic choice as captain and leader of the rugby team, later leading both the SA under-19 and under-21 teams, with much success.

Ralepelle knows all about pressure, with almost every punter tipping him to lead the Boks to the World Cup in 2011. There is so much expectation on his shoulders, that he simply tries not to think about what lies ahead.

“I’ve heard all those stories but I don’t concern myself with them,” he admits. “I use them at times as a motivation to keep me going but I really can’t worry about things like that at the moment. I just need to make sure I can make the match 22 in whichever team I play in every Saturday, and make the most of it. I’m a deeply religious person and I believe it is up to the Lord, and he knows what is good for me and wouldn’t put me in a situation that I could not handle.”

Ralepelle has had a taste of Springbok rugby, and SA rugby has made it clear that it is players like him who are the future of the sport. What an exciting prospect that is for all rugby fans.