Varsity Cup tighten reins

Cape Town – The 2012 edition of the Varsity Cup will be governed by a stricter set of rules to promote the growth of the inaugural 'Varsity Young Guns' competition, which was unveiled earlier this year, and negate universities from ‘buying in’ at the top.

The Varsity Young Guns will be a students-only Varsity Cup Under-20 tournament in which 13 universities will compete, with the competition running parallel to the Varsity Cup proper, Steinhoff Koshuisrugby Championships and Varsity Shield.

The new rules indicate that no Varsity Cup player may move to another university team and play in the Varsity Cup that same season ‘without an exceptional academic reason’.

However, post-graduate students doing a post-graduate degree are exempted from this pending a decision made by a sub-committee, who will study applications for exemption and conduct appeal hearings for the rule twice a year.

Participating universities may not field a player in next year’s competition if he has not passed 30% of his subjects in the current academic year.

Furthermore, no participating university may ever field a player who has played at least four Super Rugby matches or a Test match for the Springboks.

"We need students that are mentors on the field and off the field in the classrooms to play in our competition,” explained Duitser Bosman, the Managing Director of the Varsity Cup.

“There is a life after rugby," he added. “We don't want our players to be part of the lost generation of players that thought they could make a life out of rugby only to end up with nothing to fall back on.”