Sevens stars deserve plaudits, but South African rugby must aim higher in 2028

Saru’s Dave Wessels. Photo: Gallo Images

By Jon Cardinelli

4 Aug 2024

The Blitzboks’ Olympic success must not mask issues that need work in South African rugby.

In years to come, sports fans may remember that the Blitzboks were the first members of Team South Africa to win a medal at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Some may even recall the trials and tribulations faced in the build-up, and ultimately why the players and coaches celebrated a bronze medal as if it were a gold.

Last week, the Blitzboks were welcomed home as heroes, and coach Philip Snyman took the opportunity to put the achievement into perspective. The team has been in steady decline over the past four years, and finished the 2023-24 World Rugby Sevens Series in seventh place.

“Five weeks ago, we didn’t even know if we were going to the Olympics,” Snyman told reporters at Cape Town International Airport. It’s a statement that highlights the magnitude of the achievement, and the group’s never-say-die spirit.

Reason for concern and celebration

At the same time, the South African Rugby Union (Saru) has reason to be concerned.

One of the top sports teams in the country has essentially regressed to the point where a third-place finish at an elite event is viewed as a triumph.

The bar was raised about eight years ago, when Snyman, Rosko Specman and other legends of the code were in their prime.

Back then, the Blitzboks were the leading rugby team in South Africa, winning the 2014 Commonwealth Games and back-to-back World Rugby Sevens Series titles in 2017 and 2018. They dominated sevens while fielding a team that reflected South Africa’s diverse demographics and, in many ways, they showed the Boks how to be stronger together.

Read more: Stumbling Blitzboks still suffering from pandemic budget blow

When the Blitzboks finished third at the Olympic tournament in Rio de Janeiro, there was a mixed reaction in South African circles.

The players realised a lifelong dream when they travelled to the event and stood on the podium. Cheslin Kolbe and Kwagga Smith, who have won two World Cups since, still list that bronze medal as one of their greatest achievements.

sevens JF van Heerden of South Africa secures the ball while challenged by England’s Joe Bailey in a World Rugby U20 Championship match on 9 July 2024. (Photo: Ashley Vlotman / Gallo Images)

At the same time, it was a missed opportunity. Had they maintained their own high standards at that tournament, the Blitzboks might have won gold.

Consider how those standards have dropped in the ensuing years. The Blitzboks won one Sevens Series title (in the Covid-affected 2020-21 season, when some of the top nations didn’t feature) and finished seventh at the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

Read more: Olympic Games Paris 2024

More recently, they placed seventh in the annual Sevens Series and, as Snyman suggested, were forced to scrap for an opportunity to travel to Paris for the big show.

Knowing this, rugby fans should feel proud about the fightback in Paris, as well as disappointed by the lack of progress over eight years.

No easy fix

The Blitzboks, and several other teams that fall under the Saru banner, won’t be fixed overnight.

The Boks made history when they won a fourth World Cup title in Paris in 2023. In the wake of that tournament, Rassie Erasmus relinquished his duties as director of rugby and replaced the outgoing Jacques Nienaber as head coach.

In March, SA Rugby confirmed that Erasmus’s director of rugby responsibilities, or rather the newly formed position of general manager of high performance, would fall to Dave Wessels, an experienced coach who occupied a similar role at the Stormers in recent seasons.

Over the past few months Wessels has been gathering information on all national teams. A plan is being formulated to bolster the national structures and boost the performance in the coming years.

There has been some groundwork. Erasmus implemented an “Elite Player Development” pathway back in 2014 and, thanks to that programme, talents such as Damian Willemse have been brought through the schoolboy ranks and, eventually, to the senior national side.

The recent results of South Africa’s junior and sevens teams, of course, show that the system has room for improvement.

Reviving the Junior Boks

It’s been 12 years since the Junior Boks last won the World Rugby U20 Championship.

They’ve finished third and seventh at the past two tournaments – which were both staged on South African soil – and appear to be trailing their counterparts from England, France and Ireland. Earlier in 2024, they finished second in the inaugural U20 Rugby Championship, after losing to hosts Australia.

Saru is looking to the next generation for the answers. An U18 tournament in the Western Cape from 12 to 20 August has been scheduled, and the international series will include two South African teams and England, France, Ireland and Georgia.

The Boks may be at the top of the rugby pyramid at present, but more can be done to bolster the tiers below.

If the pipeline between junior and senior rugby is strengthened, then the Boks, the South African franchises and even the Blitzboks will reap the benefits in the long term.

Saru’s Dave Wessels. (Photo: Gallo Images)

Women’s progress in context

The women’s teams are no less important, even though women’s rugby in South Africa is largely in its infancy.

When Erasmus appointed former Ireland player and administrator Lynne Cantwell to head up the women’s department in 2021, he admitted that they were starting from scratch.

Since then, a lot has been done to bolster the player numbers at school and club level, and the women’s Currie Cup has received more exposure. For the first time, players have been nationally contracted, and one provincial team – the Bulls Daisies – has made history by going professional.

Some fans who are used to competitive performances and consistent results in the men’s game have bemoaned the heavy losses suffered by the Springbok women and the Imbokodo (the national sevens team). But again, these performances need to be seen in context.

The women’s programme was only revived in 2021, and expectations should have been tempered when South Africa travelled to the World Cup in New Zealand, where they lost all three of their pool matches. Meanwhile, the Imbokodo also struggled to compete at the 2022 Sevens World Cup.

There has been steady progress in subsequent seasons, when the Bok women secured several wins and the Imbokodo made waves on the sevens stage.

South Africa finished 11th out of 12 teams in the 2023-24 Sevens Series, but exposure to that level of competition should serve the players well at future events across both codes.

Although the Imbokodo failed to challenge for a medal at the recent Olympic tournament in Paris, they scored a landmark 21-5 win against Fiji in their final fixture.

In the aftermath, co-captain Zintle Mpupha hailed the result as a victory for the system as a whole.

“We needed to leave some mark and this win did that,” Mpupha said. “We managed to build depth and players got good exposure to what the World Series and the Olympics demand from you.

“We are getting there… maybe not as fast as we wanted, but we are moving forward and that is a positive for the season.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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Sport

Reason for concern and celebration

No easy fix

Reviving the Junior Boks

Women’s progress in context