ON THE BALL: Ever since the relationship between New Zealand and Springbok rugby started falling apart, the Boks have been looking for a new place to go and milk the money cow, remembers Lucky Maree.
But try as they may, the Lords of Rugby can’t change the reality that Mother Earth is a very big place, and South Africa is a long way away from the other rugby playing nations of the world.
There was a time when rugby (at all levels) was a winter game. In the Southern Hemisphere, rugby was played between March and August. In a busy year it could be stretched out to September.
Likewise in the north, rugby was played from August to March.
This is why scheduling tours by the Springboks to Europe was so difficult. Somebody would be playing out of season.
But then money happened.
SuperRugby started off as Super Eight. A neat little tournament for eight teams that soon mushroomed into a gigantic animal played by 16 teams on a home and away basis with a series of finals all over the Southern Hemisphere. The teams were from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina (known as Sanzaar) and it was about jet lag as much as it was about rugby.
How shocked we were when it came out that the Australians and the New Zealanders no longer wanted to play against South African teams. That once iron-solid arrangement was beginning to fall apart.
The Rugby Championship, a contest between the national teams of those four countries appeared to be a great success but that too became a problem child.
Now South African teams compete in the EPCR Challenge Cup, the United Rugby Championship and the Heineken Cup. And every week we see players being dragged more than 9,000 kilometres from South Africa to Europe and back again to play in extreme weather conditions. The fact that the players are often out of their depth as a franchise struggles to field quality players in three teams on the same weekend, is another issue.
There just isn’t another time slot on the calendar for any other rugby! Or is there?
In this, a World Cup year, the northern sides still managed to have (a very successful) Six Nations Championship. In the south they still make time to squeeze in a mini Rugby Championship.
The latest conflict is about scheduling. In simple terms, the South African Rugby Union wants the Rugby Championship to happen in March so they can play in Europe in July, and during the November test window. New Zealand are not keen on doing that, also for scheduling reasons.
On top of all that come rumours that World Rugby is organising a global Test League from 2026 which may be at the heart of the scheduling problems in the first place.
Perhaps it is time to go back and ask basic questions. How far can you thrash the human body until it breaks? Do you have to squeeze every little bit of blood out of those magnificently trained units? How much do we love money?
Perhaps Ellis Park is empty for a reason. Perhaps those 55 000 red chairs are being bleached to pink because they seldom have bums on them. Perhaps the real culprit isn’t television. Perhaps there is simply too much rugby!
Pictured above: Springboks in training
Image source: Springboks
