It’s the system that’s skewed

The juxtaposing recently of two SuperSport events in Durban provided an awkward contrast in emotions.

On the one hand there was the “Athletes who Defined a Decade” banquet celebrating the amazing achievements of our sportsmen during the 10 years of our new democracy and on the other there was national club rugby championships.

The first made one’s chest swell with pride and marvel at achievements way beyond what one would expect from a rather small and insignificant (in spite of how seriously we take ourselves!) country at the tip of Africa and the other brought home how far we have yet to travel and how little we have learnt.

Acknowledging the accomplishments and status of the like of Ernie Els, Penny Heyns, Josiah Tugwane, Hestrie Cloete, Alan Donald, Joost van der Westhuizen, Fanie Lombaard, Baby Jake Matlala, Jonty Rhodes, Francois Pienaar (1995 World Cup champions) and Neil Tovey (1996 Africa Cup of Nations champions) was a delight and it was sad that this marvelous occasion was marred, for me, by being set alongside a rugby event that revealed so much that is still wrong.

It was disturbing to see to what extent club rugby, which should be the healthy core of South African rugby, is still split along racial lines. The top clubs in the country are still largely white or largely coloured (there were very few blacks to be seen) and the hostility between the groups was tangible.

Particularly distressing was that the eventual champions Potchefstroom University, an institution whose fine academy is driven by no less a figure than SA Rugby’s chief selector and head of the technical committee André Markgraaff, fielded so few “players of colour,” to use a phrase popularized by a former Sarfu head of development.

What this brought home is that at grassroots level rugby communities are still polarized and indicated to what extent the vast sums of money spent on “development” have been wasted.

SA Rugby has, and continues, to make the mistake of trying to transform from the top down rather than ensuring that the feeder systems are in order.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – transformation is not the responsibility of the national coach. His job is to prepare teams to win test matches; transformation is the responsibility of administrators, such as Andre Markgraaff, to see that structures are in place that are fair, provide equal opportunities and thus deliver more black players capable of playing at international level.

One has to ask: what’s the point of having a quota at Springbok level when there is none in club rugby? It is not right that South Africa’s top club has so few black players. It is not right that provocative and unrestrained behaviour by certain clubs seems to have racial anger at its roots and it is not right that in a decade that defined a new democracy so little has been done to transform rugby.

It’s the system that’s skewed.