Among the overage players are Glenwood’s captain and wing and DHS fullback. Both players represented KwaZulu-Natal at the Under-18 Craven Week in 2011. Both boys have since been expelled from their respective schools. Following these findings, the KwaZulu-Natal High Schools Rugby Association started a provincial investigation, according to the SuperSport website.
KwaZulu-Natal head of high school rugby, Noel Ingle, said investigations are ongoing and confirmed that a total of eight over-age players have been identified.
According to Ingle, 320 schoolboys participated in the KwaZulu-Natal Under-16 and Under-18 provincial trials of whom eight players were found to be over-age. Noel is quoted in the media as saying, “Most of those players were a year too old. There were three serious cases, where one player was actually 22-years-old. Saru and Sasra (South African Schools Rugby Association) will determine their punishment.”
He went on to say that all the school teams in the province are now “clean” and said, “the schools are not the issue. To the lesser extent, the players are accountable, but the main problems are the scouts and agents involved, who have probably played a big role in organising fake identity documents. We hope to have this matter sorted out over the next couple of weeks”. Ingle said he believes the issue of over-age players is a national problem and not “an issue within the KwaZulu-Natal province only”.