It is time for our players to grow up

Percy Montgomery's withdrawal from the Springbok trials and stated intention to continue his career in England has prompted another bout of SA Rugby bashing from some sections of the media.

The fact that in both the Pieter Rossouw and Robbie Kempson case it was Western Province, and not SA Rugby, who let the players out of their contract seems to have been conveniently ignored by the local fanzines.

Players are given a chance under banner headlines to have a go at SA Rugby now that they feel free to do so. Invariably, when SA Rugby do get a right of reply, it is buried near the bottom of the page or near the foot of the story.

A story run on Wednesday morning in one of the Cape Town newspapers, where Western Province coach Gert Smal blamed "an untimely press release" issued from the Bok management for Montgomery's departure, was just about the cherry on the cake for me.

In the article, Smal said that he felt he could have enticed Montgomery to change his mind had he had a chance to speak to him before the press statement was released.

If that is the case, then it just shows how rank silly our rugby players and some rugby people have become. Is Smal telling us Montgomery has now made a full commitment to this big career change just because the story is in the public domain. Is he suggesting that had it not been so Montgomery may have changed his mind?

If that is so, and Montgomery's mind was not made up, why did he and his agent phone Springbok coach Rudolf Straeuli and withdraw from the trial match. Surely that was when the decision was made.

A player phoned the national coach and said he was not prepared to fight for his place in the national team like everyone else - that was when the story happened, that was when the decision was made.

The press release was issued because the next day Straeuli was holding a press conference to announce his Springbok trials squads.

Montgomery, having withdrawn himself from consideration, was not going to be among the names read out.

That would have immediately swung everyone's attention to Montgomery's omission and the reason for it, and away from the trial announcement.

The Montgomery decision had to be made public as soon as it was made official, which was the moment that he spoke to Straeuli (remember that Straeuli tried to talk him out of it and Montgomery wasn't prepared to listen).

I was told once that a sports department at a top South African newspaper made a decision in the early 1990s to always back the players in their battle with administrators. The reasons at the time were noble ones as the balance of power was definitely with the administration in those days.

But times have changed. Suddenly players are able to profit from the fall of the local currency and they are using that to beat the administration with, often unfairly.

It is time for our players to put up or shut up. Rian Oberholzer is 100% correct when he says that players don't lack for security. Even without his Springbok contract, Montgomery still stood to earn R800 000 this year just from his provincial contract.

On top of that he has endorsements that have been valued at around R1-million a year. That takes you to at least R1.5-million (more like R1,8-million, or so I am told) for the annum, which certainly should enable him to live comfortably.

Alright, he will get R2,25-million in England, but he has to pay for his coffee there in pounds, not rands. There should be little or no endorsement opportunities for him in England because in that country he will not be the public figure he is here.

But the comparison between what he would be getting in South Africa and what he would be getting in England is irrelevant. The point is that Montgomery is contracted to WP at least until the end of 2003 for the amount that he is getting now. Are we talking lack of security here or are we talking sheer greed?

Let's be honest here and admit that the only reason England is more enticing is because the value of the pound has gone through the roof, and not because the players are not being looked after at home.

I hear those who say that players have a limited life-span to their careers.

But are these people saying the players should not be expected to work until the age of 60 like the rest of us, but go into retirement and be able to lush it up from the age of 30?

You do not have to look too hard to find players who still make a good life out of rugby after they have retired. The coaching profession is not a badly paid one and the media is eager to gobble up and employ any who are half articulate.

If the players are unable to start a decent business or get good investments going with the money that they make out of their rugby career in South Africa then they need to get a new business manager.

Note that the above calculations were made on the assumption that Montgomery would not get a Springbok contract, which I am 99% certain he would have done.

With win bonusses and everything else taken into account, he would then have been earning substantially more than is being offered in England.

All he needed to do was go out and do what countless other Springboks who are worth the name have done over and over again during the past 111 years - go out and prove that he is worthy of a place in the nation's top representative team.

The same goes for Kempson, Rossouw and the other players who have cited lack of security as their reason for leaving South Africa. If the Springbok contract was so important they could play for it, which is supposedly the idea behind having an elite team.

There seems to be an assumption among some of my colleagues in the media and among players that SA Rugby should contract the top players (and the definition of top players is conveniently changed to draw in any extra player who threatens to go overseas) to play for the Springboks for the next three years.

As this column has argued before, that is not a good way to tackle the apparent crisis. For a start, giving the top established players more money means that there will be less available for the younger up-and-coming players.

This latter group is also an important investment and if they are not paid decent money they will then become open to overtures from overseas.

If anything, the Springbok contracts should be going in the opposite direction, with players only being paid (very well, I may add) for games, training camps or tours that they are a part of.

That is the way it is done in England and the last time I saw that country play live they were kicking Springbok butt.