Rugby union in South Africa
Encyclopedia
Rugby union
is a popular team sport played in South Africa. Along with cricket and football it is one of the most popular ball sports in South Africa
. The National team is considered to be amongst the strongest in the world, having won a joint record two World Cups.
Given South Africa's history, as with much else in South Africa, the organisation and playing of rugby has been entangled with politics, and racial politics in particular.
When Canon George Ogilvie became headmaster of Diocesan College
in Cape Town
in 1861, he introduced the game of football
, as played at Winchester College
. This version of football, which included handling of the ball, is seen as the beginnings of rugby in South Africa. Soon, the young gentlemen of Cape Town joined in and the first match in South Africa took place between the "Officers of the Army" and the "Gentlemen of the Civil Service" at Green Point in Cape Town in 1862 and ended as a 0-0 draw. The local press reported a series of football matches between scratch sides "Town v Suburbs" or "Home v Colonial-born".
Around 1875, rugby
began to be played in the Cape colony; the same year the first rugby (as opposed to Winchester football
) club, Hamilton, was formed in Sea Point, Cape Town. Former England international William Henry Milton
arrived in Cape Town in 1878. He joined the Villagers club and started playing and preaching rugby. By the end of that year Cape Town had all but abandoned the Winchester game in favour of rugby. British colonists helped spread the game through the Eastern Cape
, Natal
and along the gold and diamond routes to Kimberley
and Johannesburg
. British troops would also play a key role in spreading the game throughout the country.
Rugby union was introduced to South Africa by British colonists and began to be played in the Cape colony around 1875. In 1883, the Stellenbosch club was formed in the predominantly Boer farming district outside Cape Town and rugby was enthusiastically adopted by the young Boer farmers. As British and Boer migrated to the interior they helped spread the game from the Cape colony through the Eastern Cape, and Natal, and along the gold and diamond routes to Kimberley and Johannesburg.
The game was strong enough in the Western Cape
for the Western Province Rugby Football Union
to be formed that same year; Griqualand West
followed in 1886; Eastern Province
in 1888; Transvaal
in 1889 and in 1889 the South African Rugby Board
was founded. Kimberley was the founding city of the South Africa Rugby Football Board in 1889.
In 1889 the first nationwide tournament was held at Kimberley, with the Western Province (rugby team)
prevailing over Griqualand West, Eastern Province and Transvaal.
The first-ever tour of the British Isles by a team from southern Africa (drawing on players from the then independent republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State
, and the British colonies of the Cape and Natal) took place in 1891, with the trip financially underwritten by (the British arch imperialist) Cecil Rhodes of the Cape and (the resolutely Boer) President Kruger
of the Transvaal Republic. Seven years later Britain was at war with the Boer republics, and during the Boer war British troops would play a key role in entrenching the game throughout the country, and games amongst the Boer population in prisoner of war camps popularised the game further.
From the early years the game had been enthusiastically and passionately adopted by coloured
and black populations in the Cape colony, and the Eastern Cape in particular, but rugby organisation (under the South Africa Coloured Rugby Board formed in 1896) and teams were kept segregated with discrimination against black and coloured players and little government funding.
Even before the 1948 elections in South Africa
in which the apartheid government came to power and legislated systematically along racial lines, foreign sporting teams going to South Africa had felt it necessary to exclude non-white players. New Zealand rugby teams in particular had done this, and the exclusion of George Nepia
and Jimmy Mill from the 1928 All Blacks
tour, and the dropping of "Ranji" Wilson
from the New Zealand Army team
nine years before that, had attracted little comment at the time.
From 1960, international criticism of apartheid in particular grew in the wake of "The Wind of Change
" speech by the British Prime Minister, Macmillan
, and the Sharpeville massacre
near Johannesburg in South Africa. From then onward, the Springboks, perceived as prominent representatives of apartheid South Africa, were increasingly isolated internationally.
Coming shortly after the Soweto riots
as it did, the 1976 All Blacks tour of South Africa attracted international condemnation and 28 countries boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics
in protest. The next year, in 1977, the Commonwealth signed the Gleneagles Agreement
, which discouraged any sporting contact with South Africa. A planned 1979 Springbok tour of France was stopped by the French government, which announced that it was inappropriate for South African teams to tour France, and after the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand went ahead in defiance of the Gleneagles Agreement, South Africa was banned by the International Rugby Board
from international competition until such time as apartheid ended.
From 1990 to 1991 the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished, and in 1992 the Springboks were readmitted to international rugby. On the 23rd of March 1992 the non-racial South African Rugby Union and the South African Rugby Board were merged to form the South African Rugby Football Union. The unified body changed its name in 2005 to the current South African Rugby Union
.
SA Rugby celebrated 100 years of test rugby in 2006 and unveiled a new logo at a function at ABSA Stadium in Durban
. Celebrations continued later in the year, with two tests against England
at Twickenham
.
South Africa has 434,219 registered players broken down into: 157,980 pre-teen males; 121,879 teen males; 143,722 senior males (total male players 423,581); 1,653 pre-teen females; 5,504 teen females; 3,481 senior females (total female players 10,638).
There are 4,074 referees.
Quotas have not however officially been applied to the national Springbok team, but there has been increasing frustration at the lack of elite black players resulting in growing political pressure. A number of MPs of the African National Congress (the governing party), including the influential Parliamentary Sports Committee chairman Butana Khompela, have called for powers for the government to influence the selection of national teams. In July 2006, Springbok coach Jake White told the press he had been unable to pick certain white players for his squad "because of transformation" - a reference to the ANC government’s policies of requiring racial selection in attempting to redress the racial imbalances in national sport. Prior to the 2007 World Cup, Butana Komphela gave an interview in which he suggested that passports would be confiscated if the Springbok team was not "representative" i.e. did not have a racial make up representative of the demographics of South Africa (the white part of the South African population amounts to approximately 8% (4 million) of the national population but dominated the 2007 World Cup winning squad).
Minister of Sport Makhenkesi Stofile has been a vocal critic of the Springboks lack of "representivity" and the slow rate of "transformation", and was widely expected to be the driving force behind the campaign to appoint a black coach for the 2008 season who would be expected to give preference to black players. Jake White's contract as the coach of the Springboks expires at the end of December 2007.
The presence of only two coloured players in the winning team's starting line-up, 13 years after the end of white minority rule, has led to a new bout of soul-searching about how to ensure the progress of more black players. However, the debate may however be moving away from quotas and transformation. The failure to develop sport at school level is one of the country's biggest mistakes, President Thabo Mbeki said in Pretoria where he was handed the Webb Ellis Cup by the Springboks following their World Cup victory against England. "We don't put sufficient development in sports and we haven't committed resources needed and this is one of our biggest mistakes". He said development needed to be built from below. Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile recently emphasised the development of talent, ruled out racial quotas for national teams pointing out that this resulted merely in window dressing for international consumption, as a failed experiment in South African rugby showed a few years ago.
However the issue remains politically fraught. Although a survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has showed that only a slim majority of the population favoured racial quotas in national sports teams, there were still strong racial disparities in the level of support for quotas. The survey found that black South Africans were more than four times as supportive of quotas compared to the white population.
(the government approved official governing body) were merged to form the South African Rugby Football Union. The unified body changed its name in 2005 to the current South African Rugby Union
.
The "Springbok" nickname and logo dates from the 1906/7 tour of Britain. The logo was not restricted to the white team alone, the first coloured national team used the springbok in 1939 and the first black team in 1950.
version of the sport. The country hosts one of the eight events
in the annual IRB Sevens World Series
. From 2001 through 2010, it was held at Outeniqua Park
in George
, a community along the Garden Route
in the Western Cape
. Starting in 2011, the tournament will move to the Eastern Cape
and the much larger Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium
in Port Elizabeth. South Africa's national team, known as Springbok Sevens and also nicknamed "Blitzbokke", have become one of the sport's top national sides, as evidenced by their victory in the 2008–09 IRB Sevens World Series.
competition featuring teams from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The competition, governed by SANZAR
, was formed in 1996 as Super 12 after the game turned professional
, and became Super 14 in 2006 with the addition of new franchises in Australia
and South Africa
. With the addition of a new Australian franchise
for the 2011 season, the competition is rebranding itself as Super Rugby. It now features five teams from each of the three countries.
The 2011 season will see radical changes to the competition format. In the Super 12 and Super 14 eras, each team played each other team once in a round robin format followed by a knockout finals series featuring the top four finishers. Starting in 2011, the teams will be divided into Australian, New Zealand, and South African conferences; each team will play the other teams in its conference home and away and four teams from each of the other conferences once. The finals format will also dramatically change. The winner of each conference will receive a finals berth, with the top two conference winners earning a first-round bye. The other conference winner will be joined in the first round by the three non-conference winners with the best overall records without regard to affiliation. These four teams are then paired into knockout matches, with the winners advancing to a semi-final against one of the top two teams. The semi-final winners then advance to the final, hosted by the top surviving seed.
The predecessor to professional Super Rugby was the Super 10, a tournament featuring ten teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tonga and Western Samoa, which ran for three years from 1993 to 1995.
The South African Super Rugby teams are as follows:
The Super 10 was won in 1993 by Transvaal but the Super Rugby competition was not won by a South African team until 2007, when South Africa provided the two finalists, the Bulls and the Sharks. The Bulls scored a last-second win over the Sharks in the final. The Bulls went on to win the last two titles under the Super 14 format, handing the Chiefs
of New Zealand a record 61–17 thrashing in the 2009 final and defeating the Stormers in the 2010 final.
is the main schools competition in South Africa.
The Vodacom Cup
is similar to the Currie Cup with the 14 provinces competing; since 2010, the competition has included teams from Argentina
and Namibia
that are based in South Africa. It is, however, designed to give opportunities for young players to develop skills and refine their talent with a view to playing rugby union at a higher level.
Since then South Africa have won the world cup twice, in 1995 in their first appearance when they also hosted the event and again in 2007 in Paris. The 1995 tournament concluded with then President Nelson Mandela (at the time described as the world's most famous former political prisoner), wearing a Springbok jersey and matching baseball cap, presenting the trophy to the South Africa's captain Francois Pienaar (a young Afrikaner). Given the political history of South Africa, the moment is seen as one of the most emotional in the sport's history and symbolic of reconciliation and the birth of a new, free South Africa as a "rainbow nation".
The 1995 Springbok victory was not without controversy in rugby terms for some though. After the match, the New Zealand management disclosed that a number of the All Black team had had food poisoning the day before the final, and ascribed their loss to this. In certain circles there have even been mutterings that the food poisoning was a conspiracy involving a mysterious waitress named Suzie. However, "Suzie" has never been found and nothing further has emerged.
In 2007 the Springboks repeated their 1995 feat winning the 2007 world cup by defeating England at Stade de France
. It was also the second World Cup win for loosehead prop Os du Randt
, the last member of the 1995 side to still play professionally. He retired after the match as one of only six players with two World Cup wins, joining five Wallabies.
With Argentina's entry ultimately confirmed, the Tri Nations was renamed The Rugby Championship. The involvement of the Pumas means that the competition will now revert to a pure home-and-away series.
The Freedom Cup
(against New Zealand) and the Mandela Challenge Plate
(against Australia) are competed for as part of the Tri-nations.
is an annual competition involving ten African nations. South Africa sends its top amateurs to this competition.
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
is a popular team sport played in South Africa. Along with cricket and football it is one of the most popular ball sports in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. The National team is considered to be amongst the strongest in the world, having won a joint record two World Cups.
Given South Africa's history, as with much else in South Africa, the organisation and playing of rugby has been entangled with politics, and racial politics in particular.
History
Diocesan College
The Diocesan College, or Bishops as it is more commonly known, is an independent, all-boys school situated in the suburb of Rondebosch in Cape Town, South Africa...
in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
in 1861, he introduced the game of football
Winchester College Football
Winchester College Football, also known as Winkies, WinCoFo or simply "Our Game", is a code of football played at Winchester College. It is akin to the Eton Field and Wall Games and the Harrow Game in that it enjoys a large following from Wykehamists and old Wykehamists but is not played outside...
, as played at Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
. This version of football, which included handling of the ball, is seen as the beginnings of rugby in South Africa. Soon, the young gentlemen of Cape Town joined in and the first match in South Africa took place between the "Officers of the Army" and the "Gentlemen of the Civil Service" at Green Point in Cape Town in 1862 and ended as a 0-0 draw. The local press reported a series of football matches between scratch sides "Town v Suburbs" or "Home v Colonial-born".
Around 1875, rugby
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
began to be played in the Cape colony; the same year the first rugby (as opposed to Winchester football
Winchester College Football
Winchester College Football, also known as Winkies, WinCoFo or simply "Our Game", is a code of football played at Winchester College. It is akin to the Eton Field and Wall Games and the Harrow Game in that it enjoys a large following from Wykehamists and old Wykehamists but is not played outside...
) club, Hamilton, was formed in Sea Point, Cape Town. Former England international William Henry Milton
William Henry Milton
Sir William Henry Milton was the 3rd Administrator of Mashonaland, played rugby for England and was South Africa's second cricket captain....
arrived in Cape Town in 1878. He joined the Villagers club and started playing and preaching rugby. By the end of that year Cape Town had all but abandoned the Winchester game in favour of rugby. British colonists helped spread the game through the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
, Natal
Colony of Natal
The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on May 4, 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its...
and along the gold and diamond routes to Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
and Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
. British troops would also play a key role in spreading the game throughout the country.
Rugby union was introduced to South Africa by British colonists and began to be played in the Cape colony around 1875. In 1883, the Stellenbosch club was formed in the predominantly Boer farming district outside Cape Town and rugby was enthusiastically adopted by the young Boer farmers. As British and Boer migrated to the interior they helped spread the game from the Cape colony through the Eastern Cape, and Natal, and along the gold and diamond routes to Kimberley and Johannesburg.
The game was strong enough in the Western Cape
Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
for the Western Province Rugby Football Union
Western Province Rugby Football Union
The Western Province Rugby Football Union is the governing body for rugby union in Western Province, Sri Lanka.-External links:* *...
to be formed that same year; Griqualand West
Griqualand West
Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km² that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people - a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, who established several states outside the expanding frontier...
followed in 1886; Eastern Province
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
in 1888; Transvaal
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
in 1889 and in 1889 the South African Rugby Board
South African Rugby Board
The South African Rugby Board was the rugby union governing body of white South Africans between 1889 and 1992. The governing of white and coloured rugby union was handled separately during South Africa under Apartheid....
was founded. Kimberley was the founding city of the South Africa Rugby Football Board in 1889.
In 1889 the first nationwide tournament was held at Kimberley, with the Western Province (rugby team)
Western Province (rugby team)
DHL Western Province is a South African rugby union team that participates in the annual Currie Cup tournament. The team has won the Currie Cup on 32 occasions and has the most supporters of any Currie Cup team...
prevailing over Griqualand West, Eastern Province and Transvaal.
The first-ever tour of the British Isles by a team from southern Africa (drawing on players from the then independent republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State
Orange Free State
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
, and the British colonies of the Cape and Natal) took place in 1891, with the trip financially underwritten by (the British arch imperialist) Cecil Rhodes of the Cape and (the resolutely Boer) President Kruger
Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger , better known as Paul Kruger and affectionately known as Uncle Paul was State President of the South African Republic...
of the Transvaal Republic. Seven years later Britain was at war with the Boer republics, and during the Boer war British troops would play a key role in entrenching the game throughout the country, and games amongst the Boer population in prisoner of war camps popularised the game further.
From the early years the game had been enthusiastically and passionately adopted by coloured
Coloured
In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured refers to an heterogenous ethnic group who possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of Southern Africa, West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique,...
and black populations in the Cape colony, and the Eastern Cape in particular, but rugby organisation (under the South Africa Coloured Rugby Board formed in 1896) and teams were kept segregated with discrimination against black and coloured players and little government funding.
Even before the 1948 elections in South Africa
South African general election, 1948
The parliamentary election in South Africa on 26 May 1948 represented a turning point in the country's history. The United Party, which had led the government since its foundation in 1933 and its leader, incumbent Prime Minister Jan Smuts was ousted by the Reunited National Party , led by Daniel...
in which the apartheid government came to power and legislated systematically along racial lines, foreign sporting teams going to South Africa had felt it necessary to exclude non-white players. New Zealand rugby teams in particular had done this, and the exclusion of George Nepia
George Nepia
George Nepia was a Māori rugby union and rugby league player. He is remembered as an exceptional full-back and one of the most famous Māori rugby players. He was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2004 he was selected as number 65 by the panel of the New Zealand's Top...
and Jimmy Mill from the 1928 All Blacks
All Blacks
The New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport....
tour, and the dropping of "Ranji" Wilson
Ranji Wilson
Nathaniel Arthur "Ranji" Wilson was an early All Black, rugby football player for New Zealand. He was born in Christchurch of English/West Indian parentage, his father being West Indian....
from the New Zealand Army team
New Zealand Army rugby team of 1919
The New Zealand Army rugby team of 1919 was a rugby union team which represented New Zealand after the end of the First World War. Although spoken of as a single team, there were several New Zealand Services teams playing in Britain at the conclusion of the War...
nine years before that, had attracted little comment at the time.
From 1960, international criticism of apartheid in particular grew in the wake of "The Wind of Change
Wind of Change
"Wind of Change" is a 1990 power ballad written by Klaus Meine, vocalist of the German heavy metal band Scorpions. It appeared on their 1990 album Crazy World, but did not become a worldwide hit single until 1991, when it topped the charts in Germany and across Europe, and hit #4 in the United...
" speech by the British Prime Minister, Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
, and the Sharpeville massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
near Johannesburg in South Africa. From then onward, the Springboks, perceived as prominent representatives of apartheid South Africa, were increasingly isolated internationally.
Coming shortly after the Soweto riots
Soweto riots
The Soweto Uprising, also known as June 16, was a series of high school student-led protests in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16, 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto, in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of...
as it did, the 1976 All Blacks tour of South Africa attracted international condemnation and 28 countries boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics
1976 Summer Olympics
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...
in protest. The next year, in 1977, the Commonwealth signed the Gleneagles Agreement
Gleneagles Agreement
The Gleneagles Agreement was unanimously approved by the Commonwealth of Nations at a meeting at Gleneagles, Auchterarder, Scotland. In 1977, Commonwealth Presidents and Prime Ministers agreed, as part of their support for the international campaign against apartheid, to discourage contact and...
, which discouraged any sporting contact with South Africa. A planned 1979 Springbok tour of France was stopped by the French government, which announced that it was inappropriate for South African teams to tour France, and after the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand went ahead in defiance of the Gleneagles Agreement, South Africa was banned by the International Rugby Board
International Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
from international competition until such time as apartheid ended.
From 1990 to 1991 the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished, and in 1992 the Springboks were readmitted to international rugby. On the 23rd of March 1992 the non-racial South African Rugby Union and the South African Rugby Board were merged to form the South African Rugby Football Union. The unified body changed its name in 2005 to the current South African Rugby Union
South African Rugby Union
The South African Rugby Union is the governing body for rugby union in South Africa and is affiliated to the International Rugby Board...
.
SA Rugby celebrated 100 years of test rugby in 2006 and unveiled a new logo at a function at ABSA Stadium in Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
. Celebrations continued later in the year, with two tests against England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...
at Twickenham
Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium is a stadium located in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is the largest rugby union stadium in the United Kingdom and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000...
.
Present
According to the IRBInternational Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
South Africa has 434,219 registered players broken down into: 157,980 pre-teen males; 121,879 teen males; 143,722 senior males (total male players 423,581); 1,653 pre-teen females; 5,504 teen females; 3,481 senior females (total female players 10,638).
There are 4,074 referees.
South African born players who have represented other countries
Since the readmission of South Africa to international rugby, its rugby talent has migrated across the world. There are many high profile South Africans who, through residence or ancestry, are representing or have previously represented other countries. Players of note are:- Hendre FourieHendre FourieCarel Hendrik Fourie, generally known as Hendre Fourie , is a South African born English professional Rugby footballer currently playing for Aviva Premiership side Sale Sharks after signing from Leeds Carnegie in the Summer of 2011. His preferred position is at Flanker. Although he was born in...
, Matt Stevens, Stuart AbbottStuart AbbottStuart Abbott MBE is a South African born rugby union footballer who played centre for London Wasps and England. On 24 October 2007 Abbott announced his immediate retirement due to a shoulder injury....
, Nick AbendanonNick AbendanonNick Abendanon is an English rugby union player, currently playing for Bath Rugby in the Guinness Premiership. Full-back Abendanon burst onto the scene during the 2006–07 season, scoring 10 tries in 24 first-team appearances for Bath.His form that season earned him a first England cap in South...
, Brad Barritt and Mike CattMike CattMichael John "Mike" Catt OBE is a South African-born former English rugby union footballer who played for London Irish and Bath. He earned 75 international caps for England and played in three World Cup Finals, in 1995, 2003 and 2007...
for - Clyde RathboneClyde RathboneClyde Rathbone , nicknamed "Rattlebones", is an Australian rugby union player. He previously played for the Brumbies in Super 14 and internationally for Australia...
, Daniel VickermanDaniel VickermanDaniel Vickerman is a rugby union footballer for the New South Wales Waratahs and Australia who left a successful international career in 2008 to attend the University of Cambridge, where he read a degree in Land Economy at Hughes Hall, and returned to Australian Rugby in 2011...
and Tiaan StraussTiaan StraussChristian Petrus Strauss, commonly known as Tiaan Strauss was a rugby footballer who represented both South Africa and Australia at International level in rugby union and also played top-level domestic rugby league in Australia.He won 15 caps for the Springboks between 1992 and 1994, scoring 4...
for - Brian LiebenbergBrian LiebenbergBrian Liebenberg is a South Africa-born French rugby union footballer. His usual position is at centre, where he plays for the Top 14 club, Stade Français, as well as the national team. He was a part of Stade Français' championship victory of 2004, as well as the runner-up of the French...
and Pieter de VilliersPieter de Villiers (rugby player)Pieter de Villiers is a retired South African-born French rugby union footballer who represented France at international level and played in two Rugby World Cups, and ended his club career with Stade Français in the Top 14 competition in France...
for - Carlo Del FavaCarlo Del FavaCarlo Antonio Del Fava is a rugby union player. His preferred position is Lock, and he currently plays for Aironi in the Celtic League....
and Quintin GeldenhuysQuintin GeldenhuysQuintin Geldenhuys is a South Africa-born Italian rugby union player. Geldenhuys, who is a lock, acts as captain of the Italian Pro12 franchise Aironi. He made his debut for Italy against Australia on 13 June 2009. He qualified for Italy through residency.-References:...
for - Rhys Thomas and Ian Evans for
- Andrew MehrtensAndrew MehrtensAndrew Philip Mehrtens MNZM is a New Zealand rugby union footballer, currently playing in France for Béziers, a club in the third-level Fédérale 1 league...
and Greg RawlinsonGreg RawlinsonGreg Rawlinson is a New Zealand international rugby union player. He currently plays for Worcester Warriors in the Guinness Premiership....
for
Demographics
From 1990 to 1991 the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished, and in 1992 the Springboks were readmitted to international rugby. The history of discrimination and the high profile association of rugby union with the apartheid era could not, however, be dismissed at a stroke of a pen and the issue of race remains very sensitive post-apartheid in South African rugby. Somewhat ironically, racial classification has become an important part of the attempt to open up the sport and provide opportunities for the previously disadvantaged. Various rugby competitions are now required to operate racial quotas whereby a specified number of each team must be non-white. The Sport and Recreation Amendment Bill was tabled in Parliament in 2007 and provided that sports federations would be compelled to supply government with a racial demographic breakdown of their membership in order to qualify for state funding.Quotas have not however officially been applied to the national Springbok team, but there has been increasing frustration at the lack of elite black players resulting in growing political pressure. A number of MPs of the African National Congress (the governing party), including the influential Parliamentary Sports Committee chairman Butana Khompela, have called for powers for the government to influence the selection of national teams. In July 2006, Springbok coach Jake White told the press he had been unable to pick certain white players for his squad "because of transformation" - a reference to the ANC government’s policies of requiring racial selection in attempting to redress the racial imbalances in national sport. Prior to the 2007 World Cup, Butana Komphela gave an interview in which he suggested that passports would be confiscated if the Springbok team was not "representative" i.e. did not have a racial make up representative of the demographics of South Africa (the white part of the South African population amounts to approximately 8% (4 million) of the national population but dominated the 2007 World Cup winning squad).
Minister of Sport Makhenkesi Stofile has been a vocal critic of the Springboks lack of "representivity" and the slow rate of "transformation", and was widely expected to be the driving force behind the campaign to appoint a black coach for the 2008 season who would be expected to give preference to black players. Jake White's contract as the coach of the Springboks expires at the end of December 2007.
The presence of only two coloured players in the winning team's starting line-up, 13 years after the end of white minority rule, has led to a new bout of soul-searching about how to ensure the progress of more black players. However, the debate may however be moving away from quotas and transformation. The failure to develop sport at school level is one of the country's biggest mistakes, President Thabo Mbeki said in Pretoria where he was handed the Webb Ellis Cup by the Springboks following their World Cup victory against England. "We don't put sufficient development in sports and we haven't committed resources needed and this is one of our biggest mistakes". He said development needed to be built from below. Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile recently emphasised the development of talent, ruled out racial quotas for national teams pointing out that this resulted merely in window dressing for international consumption, as a failed experiment in South African rugby showed a few years ago.
However the issue remains politically fraught. Although a survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has showed that only a slim majority of the population favoured racial quotas in national sports teams, there were still strong racial disparities in the level of support for quotas. The survey found that black South Africans were more than four times as supportive of quotas compared to the white population.
Governing body
From 1990 to 1991 the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished, and in 1992 the Springboks were readmitted to international rugby. On the 23rd of March 1992 the non-racial South African Rugby Union and the South African Rugby BoardSouth African Rugby Board
The South African Rugby Board was the rugby union governing body of white South Africans between 1889 and 1992. The governing of white and coloured rugby union was handled separately during South Africa under Apartheid....
(the government approved official governing body) were merged to form the South African Rugby Football Union. The unified body changed its name in 2005 to the current South African Rugby Union
South African Rugby Union
The South African Rugby Union is the governing body for rugby union in South Africa and is affiliated to the International Rugby Board...
.
National team
The national team are known as the Springboks. The jersey is a dark myrtle green with a gold collar and a logo of a leaping springbuck and a protea.The "Springbok" nickname and logo dates from the 1906/7 tour of Britain. The logo was not restricted to the white team alone, the first coloured national team used the springbok in 1939 and the first black team in 1950.
National sevens team
South Africa also occupies an important place in the sevensRugby sevens
Rugby sevens, also known as seven-a-side or VIIs, is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players, instead of the usual 15, with shorter matches. Rugby sevens is administered by the International Rugby Board , the body responsible for rugby union worldwide...
version of the sport. The country hosts one of the eight events
South Africa Sevens
South Africa Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament held in South Africa each year. It is part of the IRB Sevens World Series.As of the 2010–11 series, 12 tournaments have been held in South Africa—one in Stellenbosch, two in Durban, and nine at the most recent location, George...
in the annual IRB Sevens World Series
IRB Sevens World Series
The IRB Sevens World Series, known officially as the HSBC Sevens World Series as of the 2010-11 season, through sponsorship from banking group HSBC, and also sometimes called the World Sevens Series, is a series of international rugby union sevens tournaments organised for the first time in the...
. From 2001 through 2010, it was held at Outeniqua Park
Outeniqua Park
Outeniqua Park is a multi-purpose stadium in George, South Africa. It is currently used mostly for rugby union matches and was the home stadium of the South African leg of the IRB Sevens World Series from 2001 through 2010, after which it moved to Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth.The...
in George
George, Western Cape
George is a city with 203,253 inhabitants in South Africa's Western Cape province. The city is a popular holiday and conference centre and the administrative and commercial hub of the Garden Route.- Location :...
, a community along the Garden Route
Garden Route
The Garden Route is a popular stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa. It stretches from Heidelberg in the Western Cape to the Storms River which is crossed along the N2 coastal highway over the Paul Sauer Bridge in the extreme western reach of the neighbouring Eastern Cape...
in the Western Cape
Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
. Starting in 2011, the tournament will move to the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
and the much larger Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is a 48,000-seater stadium in Port Elizabeth.The five-tier, R2 billion Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium was built overlooking the North End Lake, at the heart of the city. It is one of three coastal stadiums built in anticipation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It regularly hosts...
in Port Elizabeth. South Africa's national team, known as Springbok Sevens and also nicknamed "Blitzbokke", have become one of the sport's top national sides, as evidenced by their victory in the 2008–09 IRB Sevens World Series.
Super Rugby
Super Rugby is an international provincialProvince
A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...
competition featuring teams from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The competition, governed by SANZAR
SANZAR
SANZAR is the body which operates Super Rugby and Tri Nations competitions in rugby union. It is a joint venture of the South African Rugby Union, the New Zealand Rugby Union and the Australian Rugby Union, formed in 1996.Created shortly after rugby's move to professionalism in 1995, SANZAR's two...
, was formed in 1996 as Super 12 after the game turned professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
, and became Super 14 in 2006 with the addition of new franchises in Australia
Western Force
Western Force is a rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia playing in the international Super Rugby competition. They first competed in the 2006 season and finished with the wooden spoon in that year, however their performances greatly improved in 2007. In 2008 they finished in 8th...
and South Africa
Central Cheetahs
The Central Cheetahs, known for sponsorship reasons as the Toyota Cheetahs, is a South African rugby union team that entered the Super Rugby competition in 2006. The franchise area encompasses the Free State and Northern Cape. In terms of Currie Cup unions, the Cheetahs draw from Free State...
. With the addition of a new Australian franchise
Melbourne Rebels
The Melbourne Rebels are a professional rugby union team based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They are the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia...
for the 2011 season, the competition is rebranding itself as Super Rugby. It now features five teams from each of the three countries.
The 2011 season will see radical changes to the competition format. In the Super 12 and Super 14 eras, each team played each other team once in a round robin format followed by a knockout finals series featuring the top four finishers. Starting in 2011, the teams will be divided into Australian, New Zealand, and South African conferences; each team will play the other teams in its conference home and away and four teams from each of the other conferences once. The finals format will also dramatically change. The winner of each conference will receive a finals berth, with the top two conference winners earning a first-round bye. The other conference winner will be joined in the first round by the three non-conference winners with the best overall records without regard to affiliation. These four teams are then paired into knockout matches, with the winners advancing to a semi-final against one of the top two teams. The semi-final winners then advance to the final, hosted by the top surviving seed.
The predecessor to professional Super Rugby was the Super 10, a tournament featuring ten teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tonga and Western Samoa, which ran for three years from 1993 to 1995.
The South African Super Rugby teams are as follows:
- Bulls
- Central CheetahsCentral CheetahsThe Central Cheetahs, known for sponsorship reasons as the Toyota Cheetahs, is a South African rugby union team that entered the Super Rugby competition in 2006. The franchise area encompasses the Free State and Northern Cape. In terms of Currie Cup unions, the Cheetahs draw from Free State...
- Lions (known as the Cats until September 2006)
- Sharks
- StormersStormersThe Stormers, for sponsorship reasons referred to as DHL Stormers, are a South African rugby union team based in Cape Town competing in the Super Rugby competition . Despite their lack of silverware over the years, their home stadium, Newlands, typically draws the highest average attendance figures...
. - The Southern KingsSouthern KingsThe Southern Kings are a South African rugby union franchise. The franchise was formally announced at the opening of the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on 16 June 2009, in time to coincide with the 2009 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa....
are a new franchise proposed to enter Super Rugby
The Super 10 was won in 1993 by Transvaal but the Super Rugby competition was not won by a South African team until 2007, when South Africa provided the two finalists, the Bulls and the Sharks. The Bulls scored a last-second win over the Sharks in the final. The Bulls went on to win the last two titles under the Super 14 format, handing the Chiefs
Chiefs (Super rugby franchise)
The Chiefs are a professional Rugby union team based in Hamilton, New Zealand. Their home ground is Waikato Stadium. The Chiefs play in black, red and yellow coloured jerseys...
of New Zealand a record 61–17 thrashing in the 2009 final and defeating the Stormers in the 2010 final.
Currie Cup
The Currie Cup tournament is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition, featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces.Other competitions
Craven WeekCraven Week
The Craven Week is an annual rugby union tournament organised for schoolboys in the Republic of South Africa. The tournament started in July 1964, and is named after the legendary Springbok rugby union player and coach Dr Danie Craven....
is the main schools competition in South Africa.
The Vodacom Cup
Vodacom Cup
The Vodacom Cup is an annual rugby union competition in South Africa which is contested between February and May. The cup is the third most prestigious competition in rugby union in South Africa, behind Super Rugby and the Currie Cup. It runs at roughly the same time as Super Rugby and serves as an...
is similar to the Currie Cup with the 14 provinces competing; since 2010, the competition has included teams from Argentina
Rugby union in Argentina
Rugby union is a popular team sport played in Argentina. The first rugby match played in the country dates back to 1873, as the game was introduced by the British...
and Namibia
Rugby union in Namibia
Rugby union is a popular team sport played in Namibia, and its predecessor province of South West Africa. Because Namibia was formerly ruled by South Africa, rugby in Namibia was frequently influenced by events in that country, and its domestic competition.-Governing body:The Namibia Rugby Union...
that are based in South Africa. It is, however, designed to give opportunities for young players to develop skills and refine their talent with a view to playing rugby union at a higher level.
Rugby World Cup
South Africa did not take part in the first two World Cups, held in 1987 and 1991, as they were still under an international boycott due to apartheid. South Africa however did play an important role in the first world cup; despite knowing that they would not be able to participate, the delegates voted in favor and provided the swing vote for the World Cup.Since then South Africa have won the world cup twice, in 1995 in their first appearance when they also hosted the event and again in 2007 in Paris. The 1995 tournament concluded with then President Nelson Mandela (at the time described as the world's most famous former political prisoner), wearing a Springbok jersey and matching baseball cap, presenting the trophy to the South Africa's captain Francois Pienaar (a young Afrikaner). Given the political history of South Africa, the moment is seen as one of the most emotional in the sport's history and symbolic of reconciliation and the birth of a new, free South Africa as a "rainbow nation".
The 1995 Springbok victory was not without controversy in rugby terms for some though. After the match, the New Zealand management disclosed that a number of the All Black team had had food poisoning the day before the final, and ascribed their loss to this. In certain circles there have even been mutterings that the food poisoning was a conspiracy involving a mysterious waitress named Suzie. However, "Suzie" has never been found and nothing further has emerged.
In 2007 the Springboks repeated their 1995 feat winning the 2007 world cup by defeating England at Stade de France
Stade de France
The Stade de France is the national stadium of France, situated just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. It has an all-seater capacity of 80,000, making it the fifth largest stadium in Europe, and is used by both the France national football team and French rugby union team for...
. It was also the second World Cup win for loosehead prop Os du Randt
Os du Randt
Jacobus Petrus du Randt, better known as Os du Randt , is a former South African rugby union loosehead prop who retired as the most-capped forward in the history of the Springboks...
, the last member of the 1995 side to still play professionally. He retired after the match as one of only six players with two World Cup wins, joining five Wallabies.
Tri Nations and The Rugby Championship
The Tri Nations was an annual competition involving New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. Previously this involved each country playing one home and one away game against both other countries. From 2006 the competition was expanded with each nation playing both the other nations three times (except in Rugby World Cup years). Since 's strong performances in the 2007 World Cup a number of commentators believed they should join the Tri-Nations. This was firstly proposed for the 2008 tournament, then for 2010, but eventually this prospect came much closer to reality after the 2009 Tri Nations tournament, when SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand and Australian Rugby) extended an official invitation to the Unión Argentina de Rugby (UAR), to join a new revised Four Nations tournament in 2012. This long-anticipated move was generally met with great approval from all parties involved. The invitation was however subject to certain conditions, like the guaranteed availability of the top Puma players, most of whom play highly paid professional club rugby in Europe at present.With Argentina's entry ultimately confirmed, the Tri Nations was renamed The Rugby Championship. The involvement of the Pumas means that the competition will now revert to a pure home-and-away series.
The Freedom Cup
Freedom Cup
The Freedom Cup is a minor international rugby union trophy contested between South Africa and New Zealand, during the Tri Nations tournament and its successor, The Rugby Championship. It was first contested in 2004 , in a one-off test. The game, played at Ellis Park, Johannesburg was won 40-26 by...
(against New Zealand) and the Mandela Challenge Plate
Mandela Challenge Plate
The Nelson Mandela Challenge Plate is a rugby union trophy contested between Australia and South Africa. It is named after South Africa's first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela....
(against Australia) are competed for as part of the Tri-nations.
Africa Cup
The Africa CupAfrica Cup
The Africa Cup is an annual rugby union tournament involving African nations, organised by the Confederation of African Rugby . The tournament was first held in 2000, and has since been contested on an annual basis...
is an annual competition involving ten African nations. South Africa sends its top amateurs to this competition.