TALKING POINT: Rugby mustn’t neglect most important stakeholder

The Springboks are riding the crest of the wave and playing to full stadiums wherever they go in South Africa, but it might be stretching it to suggest rugby as a sport as a whole is profiting from the momentum provided by the national team’s success.

That the various stakeholders charged with selling the game should be trying to drive off the Bok success at this time by growing the interest in the other levels of the sport and making rugby the No 1 for South Africans is beyond dispute. With the Boks reigning as double World Cup champions, this is the time and the opportunity should be seized.

Unfortunately I am not sure that is happening, and as evidenced by the poor turnouts at Vodacom United Rugby Championship games this past weekend, the next level below the Boks still requires some selling to the rugby public. There were just over 6000 fans at Loftus to watch the Bulls produce an impressive performance in outplaying Ulster in what was a plum game this past Saturday afternoon.

A clean sweep from the South African sides in the #VURC 😎⚡ pic.twitter.com/AAQNPV2ZqR

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 5, 2024

Bulls director of rugby Jake White was asked afterwards about it and he responded that all he could do, from his side, is ensure that his team keeps winning. And he’s right - from the rugby side, meaning the coaches and the players, the franchises are in good health and all the local teams are playing a vibrant, spectacular style of rugby that should get the turnstiles ticking.

The problem may be elsewhere, meaning rugby authorities who think that rugby can be a 12 month a year business in this country and people won’t get bored and see it as staid, a scheduling that sees kick-offs timed for illogical and uncomfortable times of the day, and last but not least law makers and match officials who slow the game down by being too pedantic.

TMO DELIBERATIONS ARE FRUSTRATINGLY SLOW

Let’s start with the last one first. When I wrote former Bok coach Peter de Villiers’ book, Politically Incorrect, with him in 2012, he was adamant that we should have a big go at the referees, who he felt were not making onfield decisions and instead hiding behind the TMOs. Some 12 years on from then, it seems not even the TMOs are always brave enough to make a decision.

This past weekend there were several examples of TMOs taking an age to make a call that should have taken a few seconds. An example was Jurenzo Julius’ try for the Sharks against the Dragons early in the second half. It was clear from the first viewing that he’d got the ball down the line. But the TMO insisted on watching several replays. 
That’s just the instance that springs to mind. There are several occasions every week where a decision can be made in an instant but for some reason is drawn out, as if the officials are looking too hard for a reason why a try shouldn’t be awarded. Or vice-versa.

And sometimes they appear to be searching too hard for a misdemeanour that wasn’t there. Full marks for former Bok fullback and co-commentator at the Stormers’ game, Tinus Delport, for speaking out about the inordinate amount of time it took the TMO in Parma to go through footage of a Ruben van Heerden tackle.

The on-field referee was right there when it happened, and let it go, but the TMO felt there had been head contact, so asked for it to be looked at. And looked at and looked at and looked at and looked…over and over and over again. For goodness sake, rugby is not test cricket, it isn’t supposed to last over five days.

It is supposed to be a fast, pacy sport decided over a period of 80 minutes. What was galling about the Parma incident though was how clear it was that the TMO wanted to find Van Heerden guilty of something. Even when the ref wanted to get on with the game, the TMO was insisting on another look at something that was clear and obvious from the first angle, and the second, and the third.

How many angles should have been necessary other than the first one? It was clearly not head contact, and the whole drawn out process would have been as frustrating, if not more so, to the spectator at the game as it was to the television viewer. Technology is necessary to help get decisions right, but it is also slowing the game down and making it less watchable and enjoyable to what should be the No 1 stakeholder in the sport - the paying spectator.

PLAYING GAMES AT LUNCH TIME MAKES NO SENSE

Which brings us to the two games in Johannesburg over successive weekends that kicked off at lunch time. The Lions game against Ulster kicked off at 12.50 and the one against Edinburgh kicked off at 13.45. Sorry, but there is so much wrong with that in terms of when South Africans are attuned to watching rugby, but there’s an even bigger issue around the comfort of spectators.

I don’t have the attendance figures to hand, but the Johannesburg game at the weekend, which witnessed a statement performance from the Lions, looked even more poorly attended than the one at Loftus. Maybe it would have been poorly attended later in the day, but I would wager that spectators who have sat through a lunch time game in early summer heat will think twice about going again.

Last December there was an early afternoon kick-off to the Stormers’ home Investec Champions Cup pool game against La Rochelle. The visitors arrived in Cape Town as the reigning two time European champions, and you’d have expected a massive crowd at a venue that tends to be fuller than any other South African stadium for a franchise game. Instead, only 11 000 pitched up.

It wasn’t difficult to ascertain why that was. The game was played at a time of day when it was hot, and the weather was much more suited to the beach at a time of year when Capetonians tend to be on the beach. Mates who attended that game told me afterwards how uncomfortable they were, not that they needed to talk about it as their sunburn told the story.

SUMMER GAMES SHOULD BE EVENING GAMES

The following Stormers games all kicked off in the late afternoon or evening, which should be the case for all South African games if we are going to play rugby in summer, and there were three times as many spectators.

Rugby is tough enough for the players in summer, but also for the spectators, who now have to think of things like sunscreen and umbrellas that were never necessary when it was a winter sport. Scheduling the games for lunchtime in summer may help local teams who are more used to playing in the heat, and it was certainly a big leg up for the Lions over the past two weekends, but it won't draw in the fans, which detracts from the televised spectacle too. If you want rugby to thrive and be profitable it can’t be played in front of empty stadiums.

Everyone is Bok bedondered at the moment, if that is the right phrase, but the other levels of the sport need greater care - and there needs to be much more attention paid to the No 1 stakeholder, which should always be the paying spectator.