Treat Kings like royalty
23 Feb 2010
The Eastern and Southern Cape has been let down by Saru and its promises, writes Keo in Business Day Sport Monthly.
The ace in the South African 2011 Super 15 pack has to be the King of Spades. Currently there are too many jokers and there is way too much bluffing from the game’s administration. It has to stop. South African rugby cannot afford a repeat of the Southern Spears, in which the Eastern and Southern Cape were promised a Super Rugby franchise in exchange for a government-backed 2011 World Cup bid.
When the bid to host the 2011 World Cup failed, so did the Southern Spears. The South African Rugby Union (Saru) spent R6 million to launch the Spears and another R6 million to close it down. Outside of the outrageous financial waste was the more telling indictment that the game’s governors were not prepared to invest in the future of this country’s rugby and were more interested in honouring a fractured past.
The Lions and Cheetahs, as individual franchises, cannot survive in an expanded Super 15 that has to find a home for the Eastern and Southern Cape. The two altitude-based franchises simply have to accept that if they are to have a future in Super Rugby it has to be as one entity called the Cats.
We’ve been there before and it was a disaster, but that is because both provincial unions always wanted independence in Super Rugby. Well, the reality is they can’t have it. Not if the game is to be advanced through more than the soft-sand promises that sunk the Spears and are sinking the Kings.
It can’t be allowed to happen again. When Saru president Regan Hoskins made such a fanfare about the Kings a year ago it coincided with Saru’s World Cup bid for the 2015 and 2019 World Cups. To be successful, the government had to endorse the bid and provide financial guarantees. Those at the Saru head table went begging and they got the financial support in return for genuine rugby investment in the Eastern and Southern Cape. Everyone applauded. Progress, finally.
The Kings made their debut on 16 June 2009 against the British & Irish Lions and the occasion was sold as the start of South African rugby’s promise of inclusivity to a region renowned as the stronghold of ethnic black rugby.
What has followed has been crass and embarrassing. The World Cup bid, for whatever reason, failed. Saru’s Hoskins and deputy president Mark Alexander were crushed as they had boldly declared South Africa could never miss out on 2015 and 2019. That’s the embarrassing bit. The crassness is the way the Kings have conveniently been shelved as Saru’s task team supposedly searches for solutions to the issue of transformation and growth in the Eastern and Southern Cape.
At the time, in the pages of Business Day Sport Monthly nearly a year ago, the caution was that it was all a sham and that an Eastern Cape-boosted Super 15, from a South African perspective, was more a Super Con in lulling the government into a World Cup guarantee. Hoskins denied it vehemently, but the lack of progress in finalising the Kings as a Super 15 franchise post the failed World Cup bid is more telling than any Hoskins or similar Saru-type denials.
The Australian Rugby Union and Australia’s recently added fifth Super Rugby team, the Melbourne Rebels, have shown up the lack of intent within Saru when it comes to the Kings.
The Rebels, who will play in next season’s competition, secured 1999 World Cup-winning coach Rod Macqueen, an influential CEO and massive sponsorship. The Australian Rugby Union have also allowed for 10 foreigners in the initial squad, to ensure the Rebels are competitive and an attraction to locals.
The same should have been done with the Kings. By now the Kings’ participation in the 2011 Super 15 should have been guaranteed and the fact that it isn’t is the most damning example of what is still wrong with the game in this country.
Government attacks on rugby always focus on black and coloured representation in the Springbok squad, when the target should be Super Rugby and Currie Cup structures. If there were enough playing opportunities across the country, colour would never be an issue at national level and we would never have to worry about non-merit selections. The best would play and the national team would always be a finishing school, and not the learning school it was on the 2009 end-of-year-tour.
It is unacceptable that 15 years into professional rugby there is not a Super Rugby franchise in the Eastern Cape. It is a bit like the endorsing of the King Protea as the national sporting symbol. It took rugby 14 years to accommodate the King Protea alongside the Springbok, and when it happened nobody blinked. The world did not end, the Springboks were not suddenly known as the Proteas and players did not refuse to wear the jersey because of the King Protea. In fact, players said they would never clutch at one over the other when singing the national anthem as both symbols had to be respected. It is the same with the evolution of South Africa’s Super Rugby geographics. The bigger picture has to be respected and not the self-serving agenda within Saru or among the respective Lions and Cheetahs franchises.
Government officials who endorsed South Africa’s World Cup bid are as culpable as those rugby administrators who have again stalled on the Kings. Why has government’s focus not been on forcing the hand of Saru? Disturbingly, it is the only way rugby’s bosses will play the King of Spades. We’ve seen too much evidence in the past 15 years to suggest otherwise. Rugby sadly always has to be forced into change. Never has any post-isolation administration been a step ahead of the transformation game.
Transformation should never be measured in black playing numbers, as has been the case for the past 15 years. On the Springbok 2009 end-of-year tour a non-white coach picked a lot of non-white players as midweek Springboks to get the politicians off his back. It was as blatant a window dress as there has been in the history of South African rugby.
Each time you think there has been progress in South African rugby, administrators fail themselves and the game they purport to serve. It can’t be tolerated anymore.
Eastern Province president Cheeky Watson wants answers from the government, from Saru and from all those who made promises that the Kings would be more than a once-off trade-off. Watson is right to demand answers. He, like anyone involved in the Kings, is being taken for a fool.
Next year is World Cup year and one in which the national team needs calm in the national administration. If the Kings don’t come to fruition it won’t happen. Government will then use World Cup participation and the Springboks to threaten rugby’s bosses. There will be the customary panic and knee-jerk reaction. The hysteria will dominate the news and outsiders will again be numbed at yet another rugby implosion.
There will be a threat of taking away passports. There will be a demand of a certain number of black players and there will be the continued bluff that the game is reflective of all South Africans. It will be awful and even more awful is that is can so easily be avoided if those running the game show grit to match their greed.
The Lions and Cheetahs, legally and commercially, can all make a winning case to justify continued independence in Super Rugby. Neither can make a rugby case based on results as they have been the duffers of the tournament, but when, oh when, will South African rugby’s elected custodians see that the decision of the Kings has nothing to do with commerce or results?
In the context of where we are as a nation and where we need to go, the Kings have to be treated like potential royalty and not like a Neverland monarchy.
Their participation in next year’s Super 15 should not even be a debate. That it is rightly questions the integrity of those running the game, and that is why change has to be forced, because doing the right thing somehow never comes instinctively to those entrusted with securing the future of rugby in this country.
– Business Day Sport Monthly is distributed FREE with Business Day newspaper on the second last Friday of each month
208 Comments
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23 Feb 2010, 21:39 pm
K
KA
KAA
KAAP
KAAPS
KAAPSE
KAAPSE K
KAAPSE KL
KAAPSE KLO
KAAPSE KLOP
KAAPSE KLOPS
KAAPSE KLOPSE
Raak wys!
23 Feb 2010, 21:46 pm
As ek wee innie Kaap is gaan ek julle almal kom swak maak.
23 Feb 2010, 21:49 pm
@Sheriff: #201 you have done lost your marbles…
24 Feb 2010, 03:34 am
The Southern Spares/Kinglets are a total waste of time and money. They’d be smoked by either the Cheetahs or the Lions by at least 30 points, and by any of the Anzac teams by 50.
24 Feb 2010, 11:25 am
In two years we will see the Super 16 or 17
NZ 6
SA 6
Aus 5
24 Feb 2010, 19:19 pm
Keo
Couldn’t disagree more:
A while back (sevral years in fact), I suggested that if Cheeky and the Southern Spears wanted to be taken seriously they need to take a lesson from Louis Luys (nauseating for them I know…).
He took a rubbish Transvaal team and turned them into a world class provincial/club outfit. Everyone was then forced to listen to this businessman who like to throw two fingers to the rugby establishment of the day…
I think that Cheeky should do the same with the Spears: – win a couple of currie cups or at least get into contention and then everyone will start taking you seriously. He needs to stop relying on political pressure and entitlement and start getting some hard rugby achievements under his belt.
Right now he is asking for a handout but just like everything worthwhile in life it has to be earned.
Personally, I don’t think he should be dismayed by this but rather excited – it well within his grasp to turn Eastern Province rugby into a competitive outfit – BUT he needs to do this first before he will be taken seriously.
Sorry but you can’t just rock up and demand a super rugby slot
24 Feb 2010, 19:24 pm
lick bum keo . what a lot of hogwash. why should Kings get favoured over Lions and Cheetahs, from reading your article you seem to suggest that they should be favoured because the union has the most black players. If the only reason the Kings were to be favoured is because of the majority of black players then SARU would be being racist. I agree Kings should come to the party but first through the CC.
But this article, ffs what a load of shite, lick bum man, lick bum!
24 Feb 2010, 21:21 pm
Regarding the latest SANZAR TV deal.
There are alot of people speaking without the facts here.
SARU increased TV revenue by 54%, when you include the SANZAR (Super14/TN) deal and the Supersport (June tests/CC) deal.
ARU increased their TV revenue by 14.6% and NZRU by 9%.
When you adjust for inflation, it becomes much worse for our partners in SANZAR. Adjusting the value of the money they each receive, to 2009 levels, showing the whole story and the real terms value (yes, a guess on 2010 and 2011 inflation, but it wont be far out). ARU will only get about US$750K more in real terms than they did in 2006 at the start of the current deal. NZRU, basically the same in real terms. SARU meanwhile have a increase of US$10m in real terms.
If you get R700m from Supersport for Currie Cup and June tests over five season. It really doesn’t matter if the SANZAR money has gone from US$25m a season to US$20m a season, does it? You are getting US$18.7m (at current rates) from Supersport a season IN ADDITION to the SANZAR cash of US$20m a season!
Mark Keohane is wrong when he says SARU got screwed over by the new SANZAR deal and all we got was ownership of the Currie Cup. As is Pissant when he asks what SARU got out of it:
- retained the Currie Cup. This was what was at stake, not “owning it”, but it existing at all.
- secured Springbok matches to be played in a block at the start of the TN, so Currie Cup playoff window is free
- secured playoff system where the top side from each nation progresses, important as each nation will not be playing the same games (through derby system)
- set precedent where each side does not play all the foreign teams (each SA side will play 4 of the Kiwi and Aussie teams, not all 5, same for Aus/NZ teams). Important to stop comp bloat as it expands.
- got the earliest start and finish possible so the whole season was not taken over.
- retained June tests (which were going to be scrapped)
And what did they lose out on?
- an extra team (they had no chance of winning anyway)
- derby structure
- percentage cut gone from 39% to 33.3% (by the by, what Supersport is putting into the SANZAR deal has gone from 45% to 33%, we are getting more of the value we put in now)
… and err what else?
Pissant is wrong when he states the presidents council did not consult on this and get their figures. They did an extensive consultation with all stake holders (the big 5 + SARU) and Supersport.
They understand that the fans want derby matches/Currie Cup. they also know there is room for a further two Super rugby sides (Kings/Spears and “inland XV”/Royals). They also know there is next to bugger all way of fitting that all inside of a Super rugby vehicle.
Most of the value of the SANZAR deal is locked up in the TN not Super rugby.
SANZAR matches played each season have increased from the 75 in the original deal to the 103 in the current deal (37% increase), to the 134 in the next deal (30% increase again). That’s a 79% increase overall. Almost all of this is from a bloated Super rugby comp. Returns on this, what the deal is actually worth, has increased by just 8% and by -21% in real terms ajusted to 2009 levels. The next deal will be worse than the current one, compared like for like (-7% in value) and in real terms taking into account inflation (-13%). It was only the current deal where Tri-Nations content was doubled, that produced any real increase in value (16% increase like for like with original deal, -9% adjusted to present value end of 2009).
A proper full strength expanded Currie Cup played through Feb to May. Would probably be worth more than the Super rugby element. You then play a 4N against Pumas/Wallabies/All Blacks/Springboks. This is what SA rugby needs.
At the moment we can accommodate Super rugby and Currie Cup. Have our cake and eat it. Getting a double pay out. If this is ever not the case, Super rugby will be cut adrift. The driving factor could well be Puma involvement in the TN (scheduled for next season), this will necessitate Super rugby and TN components being separately negotiated in future.
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