Super overload

Quick question. Does South Africa currently possess 10 international class tighthead prop forwards and, if we do, can you name them?

Do we have 20 topflight locks, 10 kingpin flyhalves and upward of 10 first-class hookers and scrumhalves?

Why do I ask? Well because next year, when the Super 14 starts, these will be some of the questions that will be put to South African rugby.

And breaking it down to the nitty-gritty provides an appreciation of just what we’ve let ourselves in for and the load that will be placed on our top players.

In simple terms we will have five teams in the Super 14; the Bulls, the Stormers, the Sharks, the Cats and the Cheetahs. Each of these teams will require at least two players of high quality in every position, probably more in certain specialist roles such as hooker, prop and scrumhalf.

Hence the question: do we have 10 international class tighthead frontrow forwards?, because that is going to be one of the requirements of the enlarged competition.

Against the backdrop of the current debate of providing leading players with sufficient time to rest, recuperate and rebuild I fear the Super 14 is shaping up as a disaster zone for South African rugby.

We could not cope with the Super 12, largely because of the inequitable traveling realities, and to my mind a bigger competition will compound the problems and erode rather than strengthen the local game – especially when added to an enlarged Tri-Nations.

South Africa, to put it crudely, will yet again be sucking the hind tit in a structure that will provide no pain to New Zealand and benefit Australia.

New Zealand already have five teams, centralised around their five biggest cities, so will need no big adjustments to extend their dominance of the Super 12 to the Super 14 while Australia, with a small player base, might struggle initially because of spreading their resources thinner but will gain a long-term benefit.

Success for South Africa would depend on throwing massive resources behind the five contestants but this does not suit an agenda that, per force, has to include a strong element of transformation and which, metaphorically speaking, has the tail wagging the hell out of the dog.

And, if it is going to be tough in 2006, imagine the implications of the following two years (2007 and 2008) when one of the Super 14 quintet will drop out to make way for an “Eastern Region” consisting of EP, Border and SWD; an amalgamation of unions who are not even a force in the second division First Division, as Saru would have it, of the Currie Cup.

With such ominous portents it is unthinkable that certain administrators are still thinking of adding the Rainbow or Celtic Cup to the fixture list. The system is already in overload and what is needed is greater concentration on the crumbling foundations of an already top-heavy pyramid because as I see it, it is not “whether” it will affect the Springboks but “when.”