Adnaan Mohamed, Son

Cape Town - South African minister of sport, Makhenkesi Stofile, says transformation in South African rugby is not the sole responsibility of the Springbok coach Peter de Villiers.

“Sometimes we criticise Peter de Villiers and say he is very slow with transformation. But I have always said, and want to repeat it so that everybody understands, that the national coach can never be the custodian of transformation,” the sports minister said at the campus of the College of Cape Town in Athlone last Friday evening.

The event was organised by the newly established WPRU ex-players association who are concerned with the lack of transformation in SA rugby.

The sport minister gave the association the assurance of financial backing to start a rugby academy at the University of the Western Cape in the new year to identify and develop local black rugby talent. 

According to Stofile there is a growing concern that not enough players of colour are being given the opportunities to showcase their talents at Currie Cup and Super 14 level. As a result the national coach does not have enough black players to choose from.

“The national coach can only deal with the material that has been placed before him by the lower structures of SA rugby. Unless we do our work and we do it with commitment, we are setting up our national coach for failure.

“If he selected players on the basis of reputation and because they have a black face and short hair we will be lowering our standards. We have high standards to uphold, but that does not mean our players are not good enough,” he said.

According to Stofile, they had a debate with the South African Rugby Union in 1975. The (non-racial) Western Province, Tygerberg and Kwazakhele rugby unions (Kwaru) were the top sides of the erstwhile SARU. Northern Transvaal, Natal and Western Province were the top (establishment) provinces of the Danie Craven led SARFU at the time.

“We spent two days a meeting in Bethelsdorp discussing the possible lifting of the moratorium to teach these boer boys who is baas here. We are good and everybody told us that. Danie Craven visited the Dan Qeqe stadium and watched the SA Cup final between Tygerberg and Kwaru.

“He admitted afterwards that he had seen the finest players in South Africa at the time in action in that game. That is why we started the discussion if we should not perhaps lift the moratorium just for once and teach these guys a rugby lesson. 

“The late Ben Groepes convinced us that we should not sacrifice our principles for convenience,” he explained.

“What I am saying is that we are not looking for mediocrity here. Let us go and produce black rugby players that Peter de Villiers can work with. Some of our players did get what they deserved and they proved they can be counted among the best in the world.  

“Breyton Paulse was told by a coach who will remain anonymous that he was not Springbok material just after he had played his 50th Test against Ireland.

“We forced the coach to select Paulse. The coach said we were going to be embarrassed, but Breyton went on to score the first try and the next two tries were also scored by black players. They were given a chance and proved the coach wrong and proved us right.

The minister added that De Villiers must not be set up for failure by demanding from him what they cannot provide.

“We must coach our talented youngsters to make sure they make our national team.

“It is not going to easy because rugby is still seen as a symbol of power by certain sectors of the population.

“We should teach our children that the human race is a race of equals and everybody should be given equal opportunities,” Stofile concluded.



From left to right: Peter de Villiers, Makhenkesi Stofile and Ebrahim Rasool (Adnaan Mohamed)