Meyer concerned about players leaving.

In a recent interview, Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has expressed his concern about the number of talented rugby players South Africa is losing to Ireland.

“We are obviously concerned,” Meyer told the Keo.co.za website. “You want the best players in South Africa. I don’t think suddenly we can have a lot of guys leaving without affecting the depth that we had.

“There’s a perception that we had all this depth. But look at the amount of youngsters we have had to use this year. I just went through the players playing overseas and you would get an unbelievably strong Springbok side just from the players overseas. In every single position there is a great player who is playing overseas.”

Although these comments made by Heyneke Meyer was pertinent to Ireland, it is not isolated to Ireland only, in fact the it is common knowledge that all Six Nations countries (for the most part their clubs) are participating in recruiting from the southern hemisphere.

There were talks on Supersport not so long ago that there is near enough 400 south Africans playing professional rugby in outside of their borders, now this influences the strength of South African rugby in two ways.

Firstly it does have an impact on depth in positions, no matter how you want to cut the mustard the fact is no matter how strong rugby is in a country with that number of players playing their trade overseas it is bound to make an impact.

The other factor is it impacts on the competitiveness or rather quality of domestic rugby.

When you consider some of the names such as Gurthro Steenkamp, Ruan Pienaar, Johan Muller (the list goes on and on) are all playing club rugby in other competitions and strengthening those competitions rather than the Currie Cup.

Then you also take into consideration the fact that some countries have “projects” to “qualify” some players to represent their adopted countries.

The reality is unless the IRB do something about the qualification rules to represent other countries, it isn’t going to get less.

A few things come to mind.

Any qualified individual whether a sportsman or qualified professional has the right to earn a living anywhere in the world, it is common sense as no country “own” their individuals.

However should there not be a responsibility to the country in which you grew up, benefitted from their educational systems, sporting development programs etc?

I guess it depends very much on how “proudly” South African you are.

The reality is though that South African rugby by default will always generate talented rugby players as it is one of the more important sporting codes at schools in South Africa. Hence whether you have a corrupt, mismanaged or ill conceived system, the talent isn’t about to dry up.

It is however necessary for SARU to start taking responsibility for their management, their systems and processes.

Hence a few questions arise for SARU.

Are we getting top Dollar for our “product”?
I doubt it, as we subsidise Australia and New Zealand.

Is the money earned best utilized to ensure as many players as possible make a living within South African borders?
Clearly no, there are three super XV franchises that is financially sound, but even they lose players to overseas clubs, so the other 11 provinces have no chance.

Are our management of our players done in the best interest of our players?

Definitely no , the Super XV franchises, the Currie Cup provincial teams and the National coach all demand their pound of flesh, so players are never at home, always on the road, and rarely if ever get any rest and recovery time.

It is logical that Meyer should be concerned, but what about SARU, they don’t seem concerned at all.

Just the other day Jurie Roux publically admitted, it is not possible for us to keep all our players. Well of course not, expecially if you aren’t even prepared to try.

Bilts you should have just included this in the Fiji thing going on at the moment. As am Englishman I don't want my national side flooded with 3yr residency qualified players. Or granny qualified....etc etc. It is a major concern and needs to be addressed urgently by the Irb....

Geordie, I think it is more than just the fact of players (a selected few) who represent other countries.

The root of the problem cannot only be seen as "Well they have a stronger currency"

Our system can cater for more professional players within our competitions and financially we should be able to be competitive with salaries for the most part.

We have a big market, our tickets aren't that much cheaper than yours, so gate revenue does make an impact and supersport is the biggest broadcaster of rugby in the world.

It is about looking within, and not blame everyone else.

With regards to players leaving SA to make their money in Europe, then yes it is becoming more of a fact.

Showing my igorance but are Euopean based players open for SA selection?

If not...then i think they need to start thinking about it.

My concern is the number suddenly electing to play for that nation after 3 years...and that is just wrong.

It is not a popular selection here in SA, but Meyer out of necessity has no issues with it.

Ireland have a system in place that often gets criticised both inside and outside of Ireland itself - but the one thing it has going for it is that it actually works - for now! Best players are incentivised to stay in Ireland for their 'club' careers - and the incentive is not always emotion or sense of duty - it's money.

Indeed, you could say that the South African and Oceanic influx has actually put pressure on the well-oiled system, in that home-grown players are feeling the sqeeze and, despite the lure of financial incentives, they still want to actually play the game and gain experience but are sometimes being stalled in that department by the overseas players. So IRFU are actually intent on making Ireland a less inviting place for overseas players not a more inviting one.

But there can be other reasons why players travel than for money - some just actually want to. Some just know they have a skill, know they can sell that skill to someone who might be willing to buy it and know that they can use that fact to travel to a different area of the world and just experience life under a different sky. So the lure of money and simply itchy youthful feet will continue to drag players away from homebase in this world that grows smaller by the decade.... but real money-where-your-mouth-is from national administrators might keep some of them at home.

The issue of overseas players easily enough picking up foreign 'national' jerseys as a by-product of their travels is a different issue and I've expressed my views on that one on other threads.

Fly, very true, some players want to travel.

But you can bet your bottom dolaar when you ask them, 90% of them will tell you it is all about DA MONEY!

In Wales there are two players that are, or soon will be, in contention for national selection. Andre Pretorious (Blues) and Hanno Dirksen (Ospreys).

Dirksen in particular shows he has the skills. But he is behind a good number of already involved Welsh players. Pretorious further so.

If I were Meyer I would offer Dirksen a cap quickly.

Like Geordie I do not want to see imported players filling the gaps in my national team, I would rather see players we produced ourselves make the national squad.