With the end of the South African school rugby season upon us we can look back and one of the most unique seasons in terms of results. It truly has been exceptional, the standard of rugby the boys have played has been tip top and the talent pool coming through gives all South African supporters hope for the future.

Not only have we seen the SA Under 18 teams perform well, the Baby Boks came good in the Summer Series ending unbeaten with some future stars in the making truly standing tall and showing that at youth level we remain one of the best if not the best in the world.

That being said, looking at the situation as it currently stands are there improvements that can be made? Here are just a few observations from my side, all opinion based but of course I am always interested to hear the thoughts of the community at large as well.

So let’s get cracking:

1. School Rugby: To TMO or to not TMO?

After the Paarl Derby this was all over our comments feed on all social media. Naturally Gim supporters felt aggrieved and felt that in such an important game a TMO was warranted. It is an interesting debate, personally I have no problem with using technology to produce a fair outcome but if we look at it’s use at senior level it is frankly absurd with games going into 2 hours because the TMO has a word to say.

TMO officially stands for Television Match Official, to me it has become “Too Much Officiating” and I would hate for that to rear it’s ugly head into school rugby, the purest form of the game. But with every problem there is a potential solution, I like to call it “Captain’s Call”.

Each teams captain has 3 calls at his disposal, a call can only be made at the end of a phase, in other words be very careful of how you use your calls. One thing is for certain, it will speed the game.

This puts the power back in the hands of the players and frankly gets rid of the absolute snore fest senior rugby has become with virtually every try and play being questioned. A player knows if he has been fouled, he knows if he has been obstructed and at the end of a phase he can head on over to his captain and suggest a “captains call”.

Naturally things such as dangerous play will be noticed by the ref and the touch judge, but make an on field decision and if for example a player is given an on field decision against him such as a yellow card if the player and captain may disagree with the call then…yep you guess it, captain’s call.

The same goes for tries, instead of using the TMO after every try the captain would have to be absolutely certain that there was no try, it would become an important tactic in any captain’s arsenal and in the case of the Paarl Derby had Paarl Gim’s captain used up all 3 of his captain’s calls then the on field decision would stay.

The TMO in it’s current form would destroy schools rugby, so an outside the box solution is surely needed.

2: SA Under 18 and SA Under 18 “A”

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me what the difference between the teams is and why the current structure exists as it does then I would be a wealthy man. A recent post on Rugbypass social media got a lot of attention, some saw it as a troll but knowing the social media account manager believe me it was purely down to confusion.

So what is the purpose of naming a national junior team? Of course it is with development in mind, and if we have to look at the current structure from a development viewpoint is a South African “A” team really warranted?

My proposal is simple, let there be two teams but have a South African Under 18 Team and a South African Under 17 team. This is not to say strictly speaking that all members of the South African Under 18 team have to be Under 18, you get your unique cases where an Under 17 is good enough to play for the Under 18 teams and then so be it.

But if we are looking at things from a development perspective then the Under 17 group should make up the core of the next years Under 18 group form depending, and they will have had a year under their belt of playing together at national level making them even more prepared for the next years internationals.

Take care to remember as well that the international groups who tour South Africa for the Under 18 series are technically Under 17 teams as it is the start of their season, this evens the playing field a bit and still gives the Under 18’s international exposure. In my mind, a win/win.

3: Scholarships, Poaching and Recruitment

This is a hot button issue within school rugby. The extent to which schools will go to poach talent in their later years is becoming more and more of an issue, and frankly something has to give.

The problem to me revolves around funding. If School A has spent over R100k on developing a player from Grade 8 to grade 11 and said player leaves in his final year of school there is something seriously wrong with that.

It is clear to anyone who the culprits are, if a school coach or director of rugby is reading this and feels aggrieved then GOTCHA! There are some schools who are now exclusively recruiting at Grade 11 and 12 level while their junior programs languish, there has to be some sort of reward for developing home grown talent and there needs to be compensation when that talent is poached.

Should a school have to pay a transfer fee to the aggrieved school? Should recruitment effectively be stopped from a certain age group? These are complex questions that require complex answers, but there needs to be some governing body to oversee these issues and a resolution has to be made.

In an ideal world all talent is recruited at Grade 8 and then developed, in my mind this evens the playing field somewhat as the gap between the Big 6 and the rest is only widening. But this is not an ideal world and some players develop at a later stage and in some circumstances players are injured during key tournaments meaning they will not be noticed.

How can we allow, in good conscience a young player from a small school who went unnoticed to turn down an opportunity at a major rugby playing school where he will get the coaching and mentorship to develop him into the athlete he could become. What would happen if Siya Kolisi stayed in Zwide and never had the chance to attend Grey High?

In terms of this conundrum I have no clear solution, but certainly one needs to be found.

4: Age Grade Rugby – Clubs, Unions or Franchises?

You cannot knock the quality of the youth system in South Africa right now, the Under 20 Cup was exceptional to watch especially between the larger unions. But the gap between the teams with a budget and those with none was extremely evident both in terms of results and playing personnel.

Right now it seems to be working, but I do have long term concerns that with the amount of talent emerging right now that there are pathways that can be blocked and true talents overlooked. Or perhaps I am wrong in my assessment? Maybe the internal battle between players of a certain level allows the cream to rise to the top?

If we are to look toward our senior rugby it is become evident that there is a spillover in terms of 22 – 24 year old talent who have their franchise pathway blocked, this spillover rolls into the Pumas, Cheetahs and Griquas primarily as of now, three very well run Unions it must be said.

What I am seeing is that as the Unions to Franchise to National pathway progresses there becomes less and less depth and I have an inkling this is down to your let’s call them Category B and C players not having enough competition to increase their likelihood of becoming a category A player.

If we were to look at a time when Unions were amateur there was far more depth that existed in South African rugby and this was because the club system was strong and Unions could compete to a higher level than today. One thinks back to the EP team of the early to mid 90’s that managed to pull off some exceptional wins, the SWD team of Heyneke Meyer who pushed the big boys all the way and Nick Mallet’s Boland team.

As video killed the radio star did the Franchise system inadvertently kill off the Union system? You can be certain that as things stand you won’t be seeing a SWD or EP team manage a win over the Bulls. Now before you wax lyrical about the Pumas recording their first ever Currie Cup win let’s be honest and admit that they were effectively playing “B” teams from the more established Unions.

Is there risk of long term damage here? You may think that because of the Springboks success that something is working but we are talking about youth rugby here and none of us have a crystal ball to determine the long term ramifications.

My solution would involve cutting out the Unions system and have purely a franchise and club based approach. Unions as they currently stand would be absorbed into a specific franchise.

My franchises would be: Bulls, Lions, Sharks, Stormers (Big 4) and then Pumas, Griquas, Free State and Kings (Emerging).  Each area would be assigned a set amount of clubs that would compete within the Currie Cup competition, it could look something like this:

Big 4 Franchises: 4 clubs each

Emerging Franchises: 2 clubs each

This would create a total of 24 teams, I would then have a Currie Cup 1^st Division and a Currie Cup 2^nd Division, 12 teams each with the season running concurrent to the URC. The bottom 2 clubs in the Currie Cup automatically are relegated with the two finalists in the 2^nd Division achieving automatic promotion.

The franchises can call these clubs whatever they want, if for example the Stormers wanted to retain the name Western Province that’s fine. I’m not stuck on names, what I am stuck on is distribution of talent and not have geography dictate competition structure.

Why do Durban, Pretoria, Cape Town and Johannesburg have one team in the Currie Cup? At franchise level I understand it but at the development stage surely one can understand that these cities have room for multiple teams which distributes talent, the best thing to identify talent is watching them play and if you have 4 SA Schools players in a specific position on your books something has to give.

If we look at the top two levels on the English Premiership rugby pyramid you will see that London has 6 clubs! When one considers the depth of talent and how unevenly it is currently distributed then it makes sense that the larger franchises/unions need more feeder teams.

The clubs could be made up of pro, semi-pro and amateur players with the franchises dictating who plays where. I recall Dick Muir doing an open trials event at the Sharks when he first took over inviting club players from across the region and through this if I am correct he uncovered the likes of JP Pietersen and Waylon Murray.

And then we move onto the main point, the junior level. I would have the Junior Currie Cup competition run at exactly the same time as the seniors and have it at Under 21 level instead of the various levels there are now. With the Under 20’s and a few under 19’s competing on the international stage there is a need to not cap it at Under 20 level alone plus I see major advantages for the national Under 20’s to be more battle hardened once they are competing at the World Under 20 championship level. Further there will be a lot of talent looking for game time, even players who are not contracted but are studying especially with the news that the Young Guns competition has been canned in the Varsity Cup.

You may think to yourself, are there really enough players for this sort of exercise? Well let’s look at the Bulls who have dominated youth grade rugby, take a look below at the 4 teams they could muster up. Granted I have taken some liberties with including some Under 19’s who may or may not move to the Bulls but it is still an absolute eye opener.

Now granted, many of these players would likely play in and be ready for the newly revamped Currie Cup. But such is the depth that is a player such as Tiaan Lange is called up to a club for the Currie Cup you have players like Kwagga van der Nest, Ruan von Blommenstein and Joshua Eras all still Under 21 next year.

Before you argue on the merits of above consider that I would bet the house that any of those 4 teams would likely beat one of the smaller Unions pretty easily, that says it all in my opinion.

5: Better Scheduling

I want to take nothing away from Paul Roos and their excellent win over Grey College, the way the boys played I think they could have taken on any team and to show it was no fluke all of their age grade teams picked up victories.

But surely we need to rethink the scheduling of games such as these and the Southern Suburbs games? Grey were missing 7 international players and Paul Roos were missing their own. This is one of school rugby’s biggest derbies and surely the spectators and alumni deserve the very best to be there?

Before you think I am talking in favour of Grey College I did raise this massive issue back in 2018. The 2018 Paul Roos team was one of the most dominant I had ever witnessed and their front row destroyed the competition. They should of and in my opinion would of ended the season unbeaten and being ranked the number 1 team in the country had they not lost their SA Schools players.

Going into the final fixture against Grey College they were missing Hanro Jacobs, JJ Kotze, Juan Mostert and Brendan Venter. To show you how detrimental this was, they were missing their tighthead and hooker who dominated throughout the year and their flyhalf and inside centre, it’s not only the talent that was missing it was the combinations.

The record books will show a 28-26 win for Grey College, but it would surely have been a different outcome had Paul Roos had these almost generational talents for the school available for such an important fixture?

Further to this Grey College had almost a month with no action because of cancellations, Paul Roos had the 6^th of August free so moving the games forward would of made sense and then we would have seen strength vs strength but again I must stress that they way Paul Roos played and the energy of the Markotter supporters alongside the fact that Paarl Gim who beat Grey were conquered by this Paul Roos team shows that anything could of happened and whatever happens there should be no excuses.

No excuses, but solutions!

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