Tell em He's Dreamin.......

A bit of a different idea this week team. 

We’re going to focus on the bumbling fools that are known as SARU, or for those of you out there that don’t know what that stands for, the South African Rugby Union.

Now a few months back, around the same time that this years Super Rugby tournament was due to kick off SARU announced that the Southern Kings would be playing in next years competition, no ifs or buts. 

What's going on at SARU?  Does anybody know?

But (that didn’t take long did it), problem is they forgot to ask if any one of the existing five franchises doesn’t mind just shuffling off in to no mans land never to be seen or heard from again.  That was their first problem, and to be fair I’m not quite sure what old mate Oregan Hoskins and Jurie Roux were thinking making the statement without thinking about it’s consequences.  Secondly they forgot to mention to SANZAR the conglomerate of NZ, SA and Aus that runs the Super Rugby competition, that they want an extra team, oopps.

What lead them to come out with the statement and as a result stick by it, even though they must realise that maybe they overcommitted slightly?  I’m only speaking from an outsiders perspective so obviously I know very little about the powers that be that must be placing pressure on SARU to give Black and Coloured rugby a leg up, but I think most of us with half a brain can put two and two together and see what is happening here.

The Southern Kings will be based out of Port Elizabeth, a hotbed of black and coloured rugby where the All Blacks get as much if not more respect from the locals compared to the Springboks, not only due to their rugby ability but because of the way New Zealand has for the most part never excluded players because of colour.

How happy would you be if you were operating one of the existing franchises and now you will potentially be axed from the competition and as a result a job by the conclusion of this years tournament, and with the speed of bureaucracy you might not even find out until you have done half of you planning for the next season.  What are the sponsors going to do who have invested millions into these franchises who now might not be playing next year?  Who is going to subsidise them, the players, the coaches the managers, the grounds?  The list is endless.  That’s a lot of compensation for a union to pay that I was reading the other day is trying to hold back on paying out Springbok subsidies to the franchises in an attempt to save some cash.

So SARU sent a ‘team’ of smooth talkers around Australia and NZ to convince them to support their hair-brain idea that the competition should be expanded to 16 teams and go back to the old format of playing each other team once, instead of the current conference format which is only into it’s second season and is locked into a broadcasting deal until 2015 anyway.  Good idea lads, how’d that work out for ya?  Funnily enough both Australia and NZ told them to go and shove it and sort out their own problems rather than try to drag everyone else down with them by breaking a few more contracts and paying a bit more compensation that no one can afford given the state of the world economy.  Big sponsorship deals are hardly easy to come by at the moment, especially if you are seen to be screwing around with your current deal.  No thanks.

So what do they do?  Do they go back to the Government and say “sorry boys we tried but no one else wants to get involved in our problems, we tried, honestly”.  Or do they kick out an existing franchise and effectively kill off one of the traditional strongholds of South African Rugby? 

I don’t know want the answer is and I’m sure as hell glad I’m not the one making the decision.  One thing I do know though is, if I was involved with the Cheetahs in any way, shape or form I would be sweating on whatever decision is made, as the ramifications could be huge.

On that note, I had better say quickly how bizarre the Highlanders v Cheetahs game was on Saturday evening.   The highlanders, outplayed for 60 minutes by Johan Goosen, come back with a stellar three tries in seven minutes, only for Sias Ebersohn to miss a penalty to win it from right in front with 3 minutes to go, and then Chris Noakes nails a tricky penalty from 45m out and on an angle to win it 36-33 in the last minute.  The heart has to go out to Naka Drotske and Os Du Randt.  They must have thought it was in the bag with ¾ of the game gone.  Jamie Joseph on the other hand must have been wondering why they Highlanders didn’t play like they did in the last 20 minutes for the whole game; they couldn’t catch a shadow in the beginning only to turn untouchable themselves.  Who’s want to be a coach?!

Over and Out.

Keep going balls to the wall.