Women ahead of BlitzBoks & Baby Boks on SA pecking order
The future of South Africa’s women’s national team coach Stanley Raubenheimer may be up in the air, but the Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus is clear about the position of the female game in the national pecking order.
Raubenheimer, following another disappointing and winless World Cup campaign, said he would “sit back and reflect” before making a decision.
His team lost to France (5-40), Fiji (17-21) and England (0-75) – with the loss to Fiji the most unpalatable.
South Africa’s women, who started the World Cup ranked 11th and Fiji a whole 10 places lower, slipped to 13th place and Fiji is now ranked 16th.
Both were knocked out of the 12-team tournament after the pool stages – with New Zealand, Canada, England, France, Italy, Australia, USA and Wales progressing to the quarterfinals.
“It is very difficult to talk about the future,” Raubenheimer told a media briefing in the wake of his side’s humiliating 0-75 loss to England in Auckland, New Zealand, this past Sunday.
“I’m not too sure how the future looks, for me personally, within SA Rugby.
“We need a good reflection on this [World Cup] campaign and it is up to the organisation [the South African Rugby Union] to decide what they want to do for the future.
“My mandate was the World Cup and we have completed [our campaign at] the World Cup.
“The organisation needs to make those calls.”
Raubenheimer, whose contract with SARU comes to an end after the World Cup, arrives back in South Africa with the team on Tuesday.
Erasmus, in a media briefing last week, said women’s rugby remains a ‘priority’ for the organisation.
He explained that the women’s 15-a-side code had been ‘shut down’, because there was no pathway for them to the national team.
“There were women playing for the national team who had played only four matches in their life,” the SARU boss said.
Erasmus suggested it was ‘life-threatening’ for the SA women to play against professional players.
“It also wasn’t fair to the South African and the ‘Springbok’ women brand to let them play against women who are fully professional,” he said.
Erasmus said they restarted with a series of training centres where they got the women to play and enjoy the game.
“We don’t have the natural schools pathway, like the boys do, for girls.”
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He said they were running a Sevens programme, almost fully professional, but they realised they were not doing the women’s 15-a-side game any favours.
They got a specialist in the women’s game, Lynn Campbell, who advised them on the way forward.
They closed down the Sevens programme and focused on the 15-a-side code.
“We are at a point where women’s rugby [15-a-side] is our second highest priority,” the DoR said, adding: “[They are] ranked higher than the Junior Bok and BlitzBoks.
“It is the men’s Springboks and then the women’s Springboks.”
He admitted the women targeted the game against Fiji for a win.
“If we didn’t intervene – and you look at the progress they made – we prevented a loss of more than 100 points, such as Japan’s loss to the All Blacks at the 1996 World Cup,” Erasmus said of a game that saw Japan cough up 145 points.
“We have 19 contracted players and we have beaten Japan.
“People who have followed the women’s game will see that there is progress.”
He concluded by saying that he doesn’t see the women’s World Cup campaign as a failure.
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