Allow money to help the Boks

You just need a quick glance at the Cape newspaper headlines for proof that the rugby silly season that used to start in December and extend through to the start of the following winter these days begins on 1 July.

That is when the transfer window opens, and the Stormers, quite predictably if you consider that much of Rassie Erasmus’s initial squad was inherited, are dominating the headlines. The latest, though this has been an open secret for a long time, is that the Du Plessis brothers, Jannie and Bismarck, have joined Jaque Fourie, Wynand Olivier and Bryan Habana in being targeted.

Olivier has announced he will stay with the Bulls, no doubt on a better deal than he had before. So Erasmus has done a good job of driving up Olivier’s market value, and my money says ultimately this will be the case with Habana too – he will stay at the Bulls, but be paid more.

If that is the case, it will be the second time those two players have had their market value increased with the help of a coastal province. My memory is still fresh of Dick Muir, when he was coaching the Sharks, admitting that he felt like a real Jimmy when he came to the realisation he had been “played” by the agent of Habana, Olivier and Bakkies Botha a couple of years ago.

As Muir related the story, he was phoned and offered the services of those players. But it later emerged that they had no intention of moving – the whole charade was just geared towards upping their market value.

There is a different edge though to this silly season for we are now in the period immediately after the British and Irish Lions tour that so many of the top players set as their goal after the 2007 World Cup.

While there is a battle being waged between the provinces over the services of the top players, we also know that there is another potentially more crucial one being waged at another level. For it is not just the Bulls who risk losing Habana, and the Lions who risk losing Fourie – the country also risks losing those players to France.

Springbok coach Peter de Villiers probably doesn’t care which franchise these players serve next year, just so long as they play out of South Africa, which would make it easier for him to pick them and to abide to his own applied policy of only fielding overseas based players when absolutely necessary.

The way I understand it, Fourie doesn’t want to stay with the Lions. The catch is that while he has an out-clause that releases him from his contract if he wants to play overseas, it does not apply to movement within the country. So if wants to play in France, he can go in November, but if he wants to move to Cape Town, he has to wait until the end of next season.

The Lions have no intention of releasing him before then. Their new president Kevin de Klerk made that quite clear when I bumped into him in one of the hospitality suites before the Newlands test last week, and he doesn’t look like someone who will give up easily.

But what if Fourie then decides that he wants to exercise his other option, which is to go to Clermont? Isn’t it better to have him still in the country playing for the Stormers than lost to the Springboks?

Some would argue that being based overseas should not prevent him playing for the Boks in an era where the sport is openly professional. It is an argument with some merit. It is a thorny question though, for in a sense that is the point of this column – the exodus to the north has reached a stage where just one big name being lured away can completely break a franchise. For instance, the Sharks probably owed their failure to make the Super 14 semifinals this year to the damage sustained to their depth, so where would it leave them if the Du Plessis brothers were to join Frans Steyn in leaving?

It is for a similar reason that you cannot blame Erasmus and the Stormers for looking for outside reinforcements. There is a view inside the Cape that the Stormers should develop their own talent, but there is also an expectation for them to end the long Cape trophy drought.

You cannot do that without a core of experienced players, and Jean de Villiers is just the latest in a long line of big name WP players heading overseas. To win the Super 14 you need to have more than one good player in each position, which is why the Sharks failed this year and the Bulls succeeded.

It applies to international level too, and we saw just three test matches ago, in the last test against the British and Irish Lions, just where the Springboks might be now were they to lose just some of their experienced players.

This silly season is going to prove a testing and trying one for everyone, but if someone has the money to keep players loyal to South Africa in the face of lucrative offers from overseas, perhaps that money should be allowed to do the talking.