- SA Rugby’s long involvement in Sanzaar hangs by a thread, with reports of a move to the Northern Hemisphere mounting.
- All Black legend Andrew Mehrtens said New Zealand and Australia should sever ties with South Africa and form a trans-Tasmanian, Asiatic union instead.
- South Africa has been reportedly tapped up to play in an “Eight Nations” festival of rugby that includes all Six Nations countries and Japan.
CEO Jurie Roux said SA Rugby was still committed to its Sanzaar partnership with Australia, New Zealand and Argentina despite reports that they were considering moving to the northern hemisphere.
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Of late, South Africa’s 25-year marriage with its southern hemisphere contemporaries has hit the skids. All Black legend Andrew Mehrtens also said recently South Africa should be dropped in favour of trans-Tasman and Asiatic competitions.
South Africa has, for a number of years, been linked with a move to Europe. Those fires have only been further fuelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused rugby to not only shut down but possibly reboot in alternative formats.
Roux said the post-Covid world, and its commercial implications, would have the ultimate say in whether SA Rugby remained with Sanzaar, or skipped to the north.
“The very politically-correct answer is that we are committed to Sanzaar and we are negotiating in good faith,” Roux said.
“But the reality is that the current format of competition that we have is too tight commercially for everybody involved. And because of that we’re now looking at two to three different Sanzaar options, which we are currently discussing.
“The committee that looks after the structure of those competitions is hard at work. Once the rugby decision is made on what competition works best, we will look at the commercial side.”
As reported by the UK’s Daily Mail, South Africa has also been linked to an eight-team competition involving the current Six Nations countries – England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Wales and Italy – plus Japan.
Although he laughed at the suggestion, Roux did not completely rubbish the report and confirmed that participation in a remodelled northern hemisphere tournament could take place if the country was unable to host Tests or travel to any of the Sanzaar countries for the Rugby Championship.
“I’m always amazed to read about things and then have to answer questions from my executive committee, general council and I’ve got Rassie (Erasmus, SA Rugby’s director of rugby) asking me if we’re playing in the north,” he said.
“If we are unable to play a Rugby Championship or travel somewhere else or have anybody come to us, it won’t be a bad solution for us in terms of getting some game time and some commercial value.
“It would be interesting to play Japan again and, obviously, England. I reckon England desperately want to play us again, so it won’t be a bad solution but we are yet to have conversations about that.”
Roux announced SA Rugby’s advanced plans to return to training and play on Monday, confirming that plans were afoot to have SA’s domestic franchises compete in a local version of New Zealand’s Super Rugby Aotearoa, beginning in August at the earliest.
Following that, they want to stage Currie Cup and Under-21 competitions, which are projected to start in September.
Depending on the travel restrictions globally by that point, an October-November international window would allow the Springboks to face either the two teams that were originally scheduled to tour SA in July (Scotland and Georgia) or this year’s Rugby Championship or the European teams on a standard end-year tour (Ireland, France, England and Wales).
However, Covid-19 regulations could force a dramatic change of plan that could result in South Africa taking up the “Eight Nations” option, just to salve the pandemic’s commercial wounds.
SA Rugby were considering playing the Rugby Championship in an Australian-based “Bio-Bubble”, after Rugby Australia interim CEO Rob Clarke floated the idea last week.
But the dealbreaker would be whether South Africa’s traveling personnel, playing and non-playing, would be self-isolated instead of being quarantined.
“We are considering a ‘Bio-Bubble’ model, whether that’s in Australasia or in South Africa or Argentina,” said Roux.
“Being in isolation and not in quarantine will have a very big influence on our decision.
“For clarity, being in quarantine means we’ve got to be quarantined for two weeks in a hotel room in South Africa, where somebody feeds you three meals a day in front of your door. Then you get to Perth and you have to do exactly the same. That’s a month without any training.
“From that point onwards, you need another six weeks to get ready to play Australia, New Zealand and Argentina in a six-match series. That’s insane.
“Isolation is something different: you’re in a team bubble where you live, train and eat together. Then you are able to get ready to go into that competition. Those two scenarios will have a material effect [on SA Rugby’s decision].
“Should those plans fail, we’ve got two other plans: a local in-bound Test series or, if we are able to travel, explore the option of traveling to the north.
“We have games in the north in any case this year and there would be discussions about having additional games over there.
“But we are waiting on governments to announce those border [restrictions] and we are pushing as hard as we can so we can have a fairer idea of these things by the end of July at the latest.”
