Stand by for more heartache

The advent of yet another Super 12 rugby tournament – the ninth – casts a piercing spotlight on the incredible mess South African rugby has got itself into.

The departure from the scene of, Rian Oberholzer, Rudolf Straeuli, Silas Nkanunu and Corné Krige, the former two with golden handshakes they hardly seem to deserve, brings down the curtain on arguably the darkest period in South African history.

The quartet presided over the worst of times. Certainly, at international level the Springbok has never found itself more in the mire – aptly so given the unspeakable goings-on at Kamp Staaldraad.

The year of the fifth Rugby World Cup could well come to be seen as the moment South Africa lost it’s claim to being a member of rugby’s elite – a status that might never be regained unless sensible action – with the accent on sensible - is taken.

Starting in October/November 2002 the Springboks under Straeuli, their eighth coach since re-admission in 1992, stumbled from one whipping to another, from one record defeat to the next, from one low point to the brink of the abyss; if not already into it.

It’s a disaster of Titanic proportions and those who stood on the bridge – in particular the Newlands decision makers – have been first onto the lifeboats leaving a motley crew, headed by Brian van Rooyen, to fight what might already be a lost cause.

The new skipper has not made a promising start. He has formed baffling alliances with former antagonists while the process of appointing a new coach as well as electing a chairman of the board of SA Rugby (Pty) Ltd. has been cause for alarm.

In terms of the criteria one would have expected of a new coach Van Rooyen’s candidates are so far off the mark as to be laughable while as chairman of the board rugby’s administrators have managed to install an outsider whose previous role seemed to be to rubber stamp the demands of the former MD – disgracefully eschewing the claims of Morné du Plessis; a South African rugby leader who can truly be said to have international status and respect.

South African rugby has been crippled by bad decisions, poor appointments and dubious structures – a situation which is well illustrated by the approaching Super 12.

The record shows that not only has no South African side ever won the tournament but no South African side has ever topped the log after the round robin stages.

There is no question that the decision to increase the number of South African teams to four and introducing a regional system – illogically ignoring local provincial brands that had been built over decades - was an unmitigated disaster. Not only did it create a ludicrously overpopulated and unsustainably expensive coaching structure – such as at the Bulls where two-times Currie Cup winner Heyneke Meyer busies himself with the Vodacom side while Rudy Joubert moves in to handle the Super 12 side – but it created a travel demand that South African sides simply cannot overcome.

Consider this. In eight years of the competition South African teams have contested a total of 128 matches in Australia and New Zealand (four teams each playing four matches) and have registered just 22 wins (17%) and three draws. Only the Sharks have reached the final and in the last two years there has been no South African semi-finalist. In four of the last five years South Africa has provided the bottom two teams.

In an interview I did with him for The London Sunday Times last year Francois Pienaar, in illustrating the problems of creating regions rather than staying with established provinces, said it was like the English Premiership combining Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur and calling them North London; an apt description of a damaging folly.

The Super 12 is clearly not working for South Africa yet in the ninth year after it was started we blunder on.

The Springboks have not won a Tri-Nations match overseas for five years – in Wellington 1998 – but even though most rugby people agree that it is time this tournament was curtailed in favour of a return to tours nothing has been done.

As I said at the outset of this column the only word to describe the state of South African rugby at the start of yet another year on the same old treadmill is “mess.” The game is shot through with self-interest and distrust, it carries the burden of years of poor decision-making and it has hanging over it a double-edged financial and racial sword – both, or either, of which could wreak untold damage.

The promise of a bright new beginning – under Brian van Rooyen – has already dimmed and been overtaken by pessimism. My heart goes out to our many talented players who, as always, will try their best but who I fear will once again fall foul of an intrinsically flawed system.