'Poaching' causes anger again
The anger in schools against the poaching of their good rugby players has not abated and with the new season just tottering to the start it has again shouted its ugly voice.
It is not just the 'big' schools which cause anger. It happens at all levels.
Theo Pieterse who has coached rugby for over 30 years at Itembelihle Comprehensive, a township school in Port Elizabeth, is angry because, he says, some of his best players have been 'bought' and gone to Welkom and DHS.
Up in Northvaal there is anger at Hoërskool Fochville that their top rugby players are being 'bought'. Since 2013 six have been approached by Potchefstroom Gimmies, according to a report in last week's Rapport newspaper, three in 2014 and one this year. The one this year moved late in February.
The means of attracting/enticing players from Fochville, a farming town in western Gauteng with gold mines nearby, about 50km north east of Potchefstroom, has been apparently the offer of free tuition, free boarding facilities and the possibility of a sports bursary to North-West University which is situated in Potchefstroom and takes its rugby seriously.
The school may not make the approach to the player directly but its supporters' group may do the leg work, in Gimmies' case the Club 500.
One player, named as Wayne Ferreira, says that Club 500 approached him for his father's cellphone number. The Club 500 member phoned Wayne's parents offering a rugby bursary to Gimmies, which his parents turned down.
In Rapport's article, the principal of Hoërskool Fochville, Ronél Lambrecht told how promising young rugby players cried in her office and told how they were happy at Fochville but had been offered free opportunities at Gimmies.
The chairman of Fochville's sport called the process 'nothing less than sports prostitution'. He said: "The school which pays the most, can do what it likes with a sportsman. What does this teach our children about loyalty and integrity?"
The Gimmies principal, Roelf Oosthuizen, says it is against his school's policy to attract players. He claims to be unaware of any offers of student bursaries after school and condemned such a process in the strongest possible way.
Thys Bezuidenhout, the chairman of SA Schools and a member of staff at Bekker High School in the Magaliesberg, said the problem was widespread and as 'old as the hills'. He said: "It sometimes happens that ten rugby players of one school turn out for another school the next season."
The chairman of the Hoërskool Rustenburg controlling body, Riaan Cilliers, said that after a match some of the school's players were taken to the home school's boarding hostel and on the Monday after the match started at their new school.
The principal of Noord-Kaap in Kimberley, an ardent rugby man, made no bones about it. His school recruited players and in turn some of his pupils were enticed away. He said: "One must be careful of accusing a school of 'buying'. Parents sometimes send their children to bigger schools with better opportunities." Parents often feel flattered by the offer.
Tinus Diedericks, the chairman of the Golden Lions Schools, said that the tendency is having a negative effect on school sport.
The Blue Bulls had introduced a regulation that pupils were not allowed to change schools after 1 March without the agreement of both principals.
He said that there were cases where schools refused to play certain other schools. Hilton College and Selborne College were not going to play Glenwood as a result.
Bezuidenhout said that parents are very often guilty in this process, not realising how traumatised a boy can be when ripped out of the milieu he knew. He said: "Schools are especially inclined to recruit coloured players from the Cape and these children are completely uprooted."
Last year there was the case where Vereeniging Gimnasium accused Dr EG Jansen of kidnapping and the story of the escape by boys though the Noord-Kaap kitchen to get to a getaway car and a long bus journey home to Uitenhage. Before that there was the case of boys from the Eastern Cape with forged birth certificates at KwaZulu-Natal schools and playing though over the age limit.
In some cases the approach is made to the parents and, because an Under-18 player cannot be contracted, they make an agreement/contract with the parents and pay the parents. Some times the mother unions is involved in the process.
Giving sports bursaries is acceptable - as are academic bursaries and music bursaries, but it is better for a school to advertise these and allow the pupil to approach them rather than approaching the pupil themselves or through their agent.
It is not a happy state of affairs.