Springbok Rugby: Transformation vs Quota System 

Gareth, thanks for explaining the Transformation and Quota system clearly. The world rugby community need to see a strong Springbok team on the world stage. It is not always explained that the South African national team are playing with a different set of rules to other nations. Thanks again for your efforts in getting this information out to the wider rugby community.

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So glad you mentioned Kwagga Smith. I was going to ask you about him. I watched him nearly outrun Noholo on the weekend. He looks like a great player to bring through for SA.

Excellent video mate. I really like the way you're explanations are always level headed and concise. Subbed

Through my research for 'How To Fix The Springboks' I found that more often than not the funds earmarked for transformation were being embezzled through some backdoor scheme or simply going missing - bad people at the top!

Thanks for the clarification. You need to be minister for sport.

Hi Gareth I agree with you 100%, Another problem of SA rugby is players playing over seas, As I have said before I am a ex SA living in NZ,Here in NZ if a player goes and plays over seas that's it, He cannot play for the All Blacks, The other issue my family and friend's tell me that a lot of schools are changing from rugby to soccer. Once again I mention NZ. Here the rugby culture is unreal. I have seen on many occasions youngsters of around 9 and 10 practicing their rugby in all kinds of weather. The dedication is unbelievable. Great videos. Keep it up. Regards, Ray NZ

well put

Like your thoughts.Come on Boks. My ABs need you.World rugby needs you.Get your best players out there.

Heartfelt and sad.

Spot on

Yeah good job on this one. I did not quite understand the difference between Transformation and Quota. Frans Ludeke, Johan Ackermann and alot more. It is sad that Johan van Graan is going. The Rand is also a factor of players leaving the country. Politics and Sport is not a good combination!

Great vid...really glad that you looked at both sides of the argument and didn't just blame South African failures on the quota system.

This is by far your best analysis since you started this vlog. I still think you are holding back a bit as a result of the PC culture but I commend the attempt.

Hi Gareth, long time viewer, first time commenter! Interested to know what your best SA XV or 23 would be, racial quotas aside? Or even your best team conforming to quotas?

well said totally agree

Management is a big deal, a wining team will start losing if management and coaching staff is not right. The quota system in SA has got to go before you really start making headway as well, and 3rd teams and players in the super rugby need to be managed sole for the national team, i mean positions of players that might be earmarked for the spring bok team. PS -- this NZLANDER would love to see SA rugby back to its powerful self again. GREAT VIDEO G - MAN. AWESOME.

I think the same thing goes for Argentina, management needs to be replaced for a more competent one Great topic! Cheers

I agree with all your points except one. Elton Janties. He is a great player but what he lacks is confidence on test level. Sure he is a bit unpredictable at the moment but come RWC 2019/23 we will be sorry if he hasn't met his 30 test cap benchmark and is exclusively playing oversees. I see this plan in Allister's management at the moment, he is starting from the ground up, he is working to get those players the caps and confidence and retain them for future use. On a conversational note: I agree the quota system is a challenge but at the moment it is not an issue in my opinion in the regard of Elton (I have faith in the man, and will explain why if you're interested). I think all the players in the bok sqaud deserve to be there, sure we have options and in certain cases WAAAY better options (ahem - De Allende) but we cannot blame the quota system - It is not the South African way. We make solutions through passion, not excuses through shame. Great video man! Thanks :p

I've watched Kwaggies since 7s, that guy is a natural rugby player, just wow.

Gareth, agree with your comments and thoughts. Find it interesting that you mention a player is not the right colour so he is out. Before your time my friend but not that long ago is how SA picked all your sporting teams. Only this time the shoe is on the other foot i.e colour of the player. SA was banned from international sport for years for doing just that. Perhaps in some way its karma for how Sa treated coloured people in the past. From a sporting view point totally agree politics should not come into it. I also truly believe the Boks will be back big time by the next world cup. Keep up the good work.

Are participation rates among blacks increasing in South Africa? Are non traditional teams or regions starting to develop? I'll give you the Irish context. In Leinster 20-30 years ago the game was dominated by private schools and almost all of the talent came from there. However, in the last 20 years great strides have been made developing the game in areas not traditionally associated with rugby (transformation as you say). Now we have players from all over the province representing us. Sean O'Brien is a farmer from a small town in Carlow for example. About as far removed from a private school boy as you can get. It can be done but key to it will be keeping a successful SA international team. Children of any colour won't be drawn to the game if the Springboks fall off the map.

I totally agree with you! Your videos have to be projected to these crazy politicians. I doubt if they even watch rugby, jeez man they are killing the sport... Perhaps it also plays a part in the players motivation?

57-0 38-3 The quota system must go.

A genuine question from an interested Irishman. Is rugby played in public schools in South Africa? I know that the country has a strong schools competition but the schools strike me as being largely privatised. It just struck me as unusual when you said that a good step towards transformation was getting a player a rugby scholarship to Greys College. In Ireland, the private schools do the recruiting themselves without any union support and offer rugby scholarships to promising young club players.

What's G man. Can you do a predication, who would win between New Zealand and England. England went undefeated last year and it looks like there doing it again this year. The All Blacks play them next year but I want to know what you think.

You speak sense Gareth but it's all pipe dreams mate. You say it starts with the management and you're right. That means it starts with the President and the sports ministers. No chance!

Hi Gareth. Im from Sri Lanka and watch a lot of international rugby live or on youtube. Love the ABs with Sprigboks and the French. As for France you dont know which team turns up on match day. Having said that i cannot imagine SA being fantastic one day and bad the next. See they won the 3 June tests against France basically won the 2 nd game against ABs ( fantastic performance) but let themselves down in the autumn tour game one. Inconsistency ? Is it actually the quota system or the mind set of the players ? No doubt the coach has a lot to improve on. Yes change of players. But the never give up attitude is not there in every Springbok game. It did come up fiercely against the ABs. What after a 57-0 drubbing. Maybe it is something about Motivation - i dont know but i hope they wind up with good wins against france italy and wales.

As an Irishman, I don't know enough about the entire Springbok system to have an opinion. Although I do know a bit about Rassie Erasmus and that is if people are expecting him to be the saviour of South African rugby they will be left disappointed. When he arrived at Munster a lot of positive things had been said about him from the media but I did not see that being translated onto the pitch. He had a few unconvincing wins before facing my favourite team Leinster and was completely dominated that day. The following week Axel Foley died, he was head coach for a number of years including the year of his passing, that ignited a passion back into the Munster player's and I feel Rassie Erasmus wrongly got credit for this. The credit should in my opinion have gone to Anthony (Axel) Foley and the connection he had with his players. My point is that when push came to shove and passion along with aggression could not solely win a game, Rassie Erasmus was not there with a good game plan or even decent tactics to help his players get the upper hand. I question his ability on the international stage and feel South Africa will struggle against the major rugby nations such as New Zealand, Ireland and England.

Paarl Boys High 28 (SA) Christchurch Boys 7 (NZ) Boland Landbou 59 (SA) Napier Boys’ 26 (NZ) Grey College 66 (SA) Christchurch Boys 28 (NZ) Boland Landbou 30 (SA) Napier Boys’ 25 (NZ) Glenwood 32 (SA) John McGlashan College 17 (NZ) Grey College 73 (SA) Christchurch Boys 26 (NZ) Paul Roos 93 (SA) Southland Boys 5 (NZ) Monument 48 (SA) John McGlashan College 10 (NZ) Grey College (SA) 54 Southland Boys High (NZ) 0 Paul Roos (SA) 62 Napier Boys High (NZ) 7 Paul Roos (SA) 52 St Peter’s College (NZ) 5 No quota system in local school rugby. Coaches can pick teams on merit. This means we may have white wings and full white backline etc. New Zealand Schoolboy Teams actually get to play against our best players. Unfortunately 90% of the sa schoolboy teams will never play provincial or national rugby - so your junior & senior all blacks as well as super rugby teams will never play against these boys. Nothing to feel ashamed about - we have always been the best in rugby. Just quota systems are making our provincial and national teams weak. We lose players from age 12 to 18 and senior level - thousands of our best players. Not allowed to pick our best players in provincial and national levels all age groups. Respect to New Zealand Schools for playing against our quota free schoolboy rugby teams.

I personally think Nick Mallett or Johan Ackerman should be the coach if not the both of them one as Head or assistance coach

1. tendai mtawarira 2.malcolm marx 3. coenie oosthuizen (injured so stefen kitshoff) 4.eben etzebeth 5.pieter steph du toit 6.jaco kriel 7. siya kolisi 8. duane vermeulen / jean luc du preez 9. rudy paige but we need faf de klerk back irgently. even kobus reinach can be very good. 10 . Handre pollard 11. courtnal skozan/ the left wing of the sharks cant remember his name. 12.ruan janse van rensburg ( jan serfontein is a big loss 13. jesse kriel 14. mapimpi (kings wing)/dylan leyds not bad but not strong. 11 is your fast wing and 14 your strong wing. 15. warrick gelant if thats the starting lineup our boks can come far but allister coetzee doesnt not use his ficking nut for a brain. sorry but need a other coach. heyneke meyer selected better teams exept the team against japan in 2015. please make a video of who you think the starting lineup for the springboks must be please g man

agree.

The slide seems unstoppable. Politics & sport are contradictory. The Boks could become so bad that the politicians will begin to look elsewhere for a bit of glory if ther is no glory rubbing off from the once unbeatable Boks. Then & only then a team might get picked on merit. There is politics & religion in IRL yes, but if a quota was attempted the politician would be chased off the island, & not before he'd become a figure of ridicule. Why is ther no quota system in SA soccer ? Is it not fair to say that huge elements of the SA nation do not participate nor hav any interest in Rugby &

Im a Kiwi looking at SA rugby from the outside and I agree. Players shoulde be picked on merit not colour, SA rugby is suffering because of your quota system. No disrespect intended.

yes Gareth i agree with you 100%. but everyone should understand why SA is like this currently and not like NZ. SA has a terrible deep bloody history which a lot of people do not know about, and this is why people from other country's get confused why SA is not like NZ( very developed and great in sport) SA's sport is amazing how many talent and potential there is but not used and treated correctly. NZ can't be compared to SA because they didnt go through all this bad unpleasant history, yes you could of compared how competitive they both were. anyway what im trying to say is SA has a lot of deep wounds and we have to patch it up a bit but that takes time and that is what politics are trying to do in SA but doing it horribly wrong. That is why we need a new party ruler. hopefully you understand what im trying to say but in overall i love your vids man!!!!

You are referring to what it is called in The States is "Affirmative Action." The challenge of Transformation is that children only become interested in a sport if they have idols in that sport. Here, we have what came first, the chicken or the egg. So the black Boks have to go to these communities. The players will have to "grow" on the children. It will take awhile, but SA Rugby will prevail, but it will take a few generations. Also, the poisonous clergy that tells their own people to stay away from "the white sport" is another problem, similar to what we have in The States. Lets be positive.

1000000000 agree%

Just my own opinion on a form of transformation, Keep politics out nurture your young ones from the cradle to the grave create intense comaraderie between players, culture, family ( family is powerful it creates oness ) be extremely fit grow yr skills and systems to use on the field Players selected on merit should earn good money

The problem is, nothing has been done within SA rugby for the last 20+ years since the end of apartheid. They haven't 'transformed' anything. So what do you do? If its not happening voluntarily, something needs to be done doesn't it. Unless you want it to continue as a white mans game. You can't compare to NZ because we never had apartheid- although we were forced to leave out māori players when playing SA. Saying politics needs to 'buggar off' from sport is fine to say now, but it was introduced to sport some time ago and it created an unfair advantage to white people. Racism isn't politics, its a question of morality and is involved in every aspect of our lives, including sport. You have 80% of the population not that interested in what to them, symbolises apartheid. From a purely financial perspective, it makes absolute sense to create a system which encourages and ensures black player involvement. Nick Mallett doesn't think quotas are the cause of the current problems, neither does Naas Botha- believing the problem is a lack of skills within SA rugby. I am not surprised it gets blamed myself, but there was always going to be a period of development, a period where you were weaker, in order to right there wrongs of the past and have a fairer and more representative squad in the future. The real challenge for South Africa is whether or not they're willing to bear the pain of transformation in order to really lay the past to rest once and for all.

We need heyneke Meyer back. I know for a fact he wouldn't take kak from the politics

the quota system needs to be done away with completely.

Gman why don't that government make their own team and leave the boks for you fellas. I don't think your government will ever change.

If people play bad in new zealand rugby and they get kicked out of the team why is SBW still there!!!

Hey Gareth. Great video but i have a few issues to add too. Transformation involves a lot of detail and we can all attest to SARU not taking this seriously. The problem with quota systems besides robbing deserving players of opportunities is that it now makes every black player look like a token player. There are black players we all know who deserve to be in that team but because of that system they'll never get the adequate respect they deserve. The problem with South Africa is that you have 2 popular racial backgrounds opposing each other. You have the white afrikaner side which constantly harps on about 'our rugby' and the native blacks going on about 'our football' Until you get to a point where no race pretends to own and lays ownership upon any sport we can start making progress in transformation. Like you said, Rassie Erasmus coming back doesn't spell out success. To be honest i see him getting stiffled by boardroom nonsense even if he did try to get his hands dirty for the sake of the Springbok brand. South African rugby can have Steve Hansen and Graham Henry gift wrapped and we still won't know what to do with them because some old men sit in board room and discuss how bad to screw the boks. I noticed as well that the quota system was applied when Coetzee himself was hired for the job. We all knew he wasn't good enough (he hadn't done much with the Stormers and even they were done with him) and it was obviously politically motivated. SARU bosses themselves plunged Coetzee in the role wanting him to fail so they could rubbish any further claims of having a person of colour on the bok top job in future. It's because SARU and politicians tried to do their own little standoff that we find ourselves wearing green and gold bok jerseys that are too embarrassing to even use as toilet paper. The problem with even the way we contract coaches is this. The Springbok coach is contracted with the Rugby World Cup being the goal hence the constant 4 year term which is wrong. Winning a world cup shouldn't even be a goal at the beginning of four years. Assign them to be responsible for growth and consistency first as main goals before you harp on about winning that trophy. Apart from just the issue of the four year tenure we need to revise the whole idea of hiring South African coaches only. Right now if we fire Coetzee who then will take over? I see no south african coach who is currently good enough or has the adequate experience to get into that role. Most would say point at Ackerman but besides him just signing with Gloucester i'd give him more time to build up his portfolio. I think we all know how to fix the problem, well at least people not in denial do. Until we start having the hard conversations- the ones people say are too sensitive we are not going forward.

Time to sheer the hair and start playing the game, more time is spent on their hair style than their training - ship the whole team and start over, new players new staff and new contracts based on performance.

Pretty sure there are many poor white kids that have dreams to play rugby that are not included in this transformation scheme because they are white. Transformation to me is the exact same thing as Quota in theory, as the outcome of both will be geared towards a specific skin color receiving preference over another through either development or out right selection. The following is what New Zealand thinks of Transformation in South Africa by Mark Reasons of Telegraph Newspapers: “Unfortunately I believe the South African government doesn't give a stuff about rugby. It only cares about how many black people are in the team. They call it transformation.” “Transformation is happening, but it is the transformation of South African rugby into a second-rate sport. Unless the government puts rugby into more state schools, there will be no transformation. Football will remain the majority sport for black kids, and is there really anything wrong with that? “The government shows no desire to transform its schools. It would cost too much. And so it passes the buck and New Zealand wins again on the pitch. Off the pitch there are not so many bucks left to pass. If South African rugby takes a bath, New Zealand rugby goes under, too. The wider implications of South African's rugby demise through state interference is felt on a much larger scale than most South Africans realize. I have lived in New Zealand for 11 years now and witnessed first hand how the standard of competition, or lack there of has put a damper on the overall interest of any Springbok related tours, here or in SA.

Although a year on, yet we still have this problem in the 2 sports many considered a white sport ie rugby and cricket. Why is the quota target not yet reached after so many years after unification? Do all of you commenting here actually watch SR seeing that most players come from the competition? Isn't there enough black players at this level? There is.. Thing is all the Coaches are white with some black assistant coaches! You're blaming Elton and I've picked up that you Gareth and many other white pundits are quick to crit players of colour! Who cost the Boks the game this year at RWC against AB's? It was white players, yes and on your review of that game you're quick to point out Mapimpi's missed tackles on first Sevu than Ardie. Duane dropped the ball for their first try and also didn't make the tackle on ALB that led to 2nd try which was caused by Pollard's knock on. PDV were the last coach that knew how to beat NZ. Meyer got one lucky win in 8 matches. AC got nothing against NZ. Going forward I'm gonna watch your videos closely to see if you can explicitly call out Faf, Handre and Willie le Roux! If the white coaches at SR level and even at the Boks now with Rassie stop with their buddy-buddy selections we will not go far. Prime example Embrose and Curwin this year, you simply cant be selected for the Boks if you don't play at your fucking franchise! What the hell is Truck Steyn and Brits doing at the World Cup? The players you're talking about going overseas is not because of Black players but because of money, simple as that! On many occasions white players are 1st choice, some not by right but because of SARU contract or favoritism! Because of quotas Bokke could beat AB's at home!