Sharks release Kolisi to play in France after RWC

The Cell C Sharks have granted Springbok captain Siya Kolisi his wish to continue his career with French club Racing 92 after the Rugby World Cup.

The Sharks confirmed the decision via press release on Tuesday morning.

Kolisi is on a long-term five year contract that started in 2021 with the Sharks and has been granted an early release by the Durbanites as they were sympathetic to his request to be able to spend more time with his family by living away from the intense glare of the South African rugby spotlight.

“Siya has been an instrumental and much-loved member of the Sharks family since joining two years ago. His well-documented and commendable leadership qualities extend far beyond the playing field,” said Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee.

“His move to France is a new and exciting opportunity and we couldn’t be happier for him. We are blessed to have him don the black and white jersey and we know that over the next few months he will continue to give back to the team and to our fans.”

Kolisi will still play for the Durban team for the rest of the current season, which means that he could yet still fulfill his dream of adding to his World Cup winners medal by leading the Sharks to victory in the Heineken Champions Cup or the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

My statement on joining @racing92 after the 2023 Rugby World Cup. pic.twitter.com/bxR8YOkA54

— Siya Kolisi (@SiyaKolisi) January 3, 2023

The Sharks look better placed in the former competition at present after two good wins home and away, but even in the URC they look like they are starting to pick up momentum after the massive glitch of the 35-0 defeat to Cardiff in November.

No one has said as much but one of the new lures of being based at an overseas club, apart from the money that comes through the foreign exchange rate, is the fact that if you are based in the northern hemisphere you spend less time traveling and away from family.

Racing 92 would do the cross-hemisphere flight to South Africa just once a season at most, and then only if they get drawn to play a South African team in the pool phases of the Heineken Cup.

For South African players it is quickly becoming apparent that life in the URC and Heineken Champions Cup is tougher than the challenges faced down in the Super Rugby era due to the massive amount of travel that happens during a season.

The Sharks were in France just before Christmas and are now on their way via a long journey via Doha and London to Galway, where they will face Connacht in their next URC match on Saturday night.

It is something that Jake White, the Vodacom Bulls coach, has spoken out often about, but there has been some tacit agreement with him from Sharks director of rugby Neil Powell and from DHL Stormers coach John Dobson in recent weeks.

The Stormers, Bulls and Sharks were all overseas in the second part of December for Champions Cup fixtures and now hit the trail again as they head overseas for the next round of the URC followed by the return Champions Cup clashes.

If the flights were the overnight direct 11 or 12-hour flights to Europe that were initially envisaged, thus cutting out the Doha transfer that makes the journey stretch out over more than a 24-hour day, it would be more palatable for the South African players and coaches.

That is what they thought they were buying into. But instead, Dobson counted four stops that the Stormers will have to put up with on their trip to Glasgow, and it is similar for the other South African traveling teams, who are also doing all their flying economy class.

White says his team faces so much traveling in the coming month that there are only nine days where his team will be able to train. As his Stormers counterpart said last week, it’s a situation that requires looking at by the organisers of the respective competitions.

There was a lot of complaining about the travel in Super Rugby, but at least in that competition the trip to New Zealand and Australia only happened once a season. And the length of the flights from SA to Australasia is similar to SA to Europe if you go via the Middle East as they are now.