Lloyd Burnard – Sport24
- Currie Cup could be South Africa’s main event on the 2020 rugby calendar
- Sharks flank James Venter scored two tries in a losing cause in last year’s final
- He says now, more than ever, it is important for rugby players to consider their futures outside of the game
This
weekend was due to be the final round of regular season fixtures in Super Rugby
2020, but with the tournament still suspended, it is now almost certainly over
for the year from a South African perspective.
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New Zealand are due to kick off
their Super Rugby Aotearoa on June 13, but in South Africa there are no
indications that professional rugby will be resuming any time soon.
Non-contact professional sport
will be allowed when the country moves into Level 3 of its national
coronavirus lockdown on June 1, but what that means for rugby is still not
clear.
SA Rugby continues to engage with
government in an effort to secure a return to play in some capacity, but it is now
looking increasingly likely that an extended Currie Cup tournament – perhaps as
late in the year as October – will be the next rugby action on South African
soil.
While the lockdown itself is the
major issue standing in the way of a return to play, the other is that South
Africa’s unions and franchises would effectively need a full pre-season of
conditioning to get their players match ready for any competition.
One man who has some unfinished
business with the Currie Cup and who would welcome the opportunity for that
tournament to be the main event on the South African rugby calendar this year
is Sharks flank James
Venter.
READ: Sharks’ Venter embraces Brussow
comparisons
Born and bred on KwaZulu-Natal’s
south coast, Venter was snapped up by the Lions after school but, at the end of
2019, he penned a deal to return to Durban and the Sharks ahead of the 2020
Super Rugby season.
He says it was always his dream
to return to “the black and white” of the Sharks and he was in
sublime form throughout the opening seven rounds of Super Rugby fixtures, where
the Durbanites were top of both the South African conference and the combined
log before the tournament was suspended at the end of March.
It has contributed towards a
breakthrough year for the specialist fetcher, but he was already making waves
towards the end of 2019.
In last year’s Currie Cup final,
the Free State Cheetahs emerged 31-28 winners against the Golden Lions in
Bloemfontein with Venter scoring two tries for the visitors in a losing
cause.
He looks back fondly on that day
despite the result, and speaking to Sport24 this week the 23-year-old
acknowledged that the Currie Cup was a special tournament to him and that it
would be worthy of serving as the main event on the South African rugby
calendar this year.
“I’ve always been a massive
fan of the Currie Cup since I was a ‘laaitie’ (youngster). For me, it’s a
competition that should encompass all of the domestic sides in South
Africa,” Venter said.
“If we can get the whole of
South Africa watching and all eyes on one tournament, even if it is some kind
of extended Currie Cup towards the end of this year, I think it will help to
unite the rugby supporters out there.
“It would be great to get
the focus on our brand of rugby – the South African brand of rugby – which is
really good. Hopefully that is in the mix and something that can get signed
off.”
Venter added that the lockdown
period had forced rugby players in the country into a period of
introspection.
“I think this lockdown gave
a lot of rugby players a good understanding that life after rugby is
real,” he said.
“It’s opened a lot of eyes
and made a lot of guys understand that they’ve got to focus on something
post-rugby.”
