I refer to the article last week about the state of Paarl rugby, dated 16 January. I would like to add my humble views.
I agree that Paarl rugby has this very strong nuanced, shady history. Our beautiful town has been a constant conveyor belt, breeding and churning out some of the best rugby players from both sides of the river, who went on to play at the highest level.
Unfortunately, the current Paarl rugby model in place is not fit for purpose. It has not moved with the times, it is stale in its design and nature, it does not serve rugby well, and it fails both our male and female rugby players.
Furthermore, it has alienated our people from their rugby roots and caused our people to frown upon rugby in the Boland region. It has been built around archaic, old fashion generational sentiment that wants to force our children to play for the club of their ancestors, with no or very little prospect of our youngsters making it to the top. To be blunt and honest, playing our rugby in the Western Province does not serve our people well. It denies our players opportunities to grow their own game, it has created distance between the game of rugby and its base, meaning it has taken the game away from its spectators and young aspiring players.
In the past WP had the DISAS and Vodacom Cup development pipelines to get players into the WP Currie Cup teams, but both no longer exist. Now you have to advance through the Varsity Cup teams to get into the Currie Cup and the Stormers teams to play in the URC, Champions Cup and the national team. In order to get there through grassroots level rugby though, you have to compete in the regions, the zones and Super A, B and C. These structural changes in WP rugby, necessitate that we change our very own thinking, the ways we look at rugby in Paarl, and craft alternatives and our very own approach to how we view rugby. We owe it to ourselves, the current and next generations, and not to our ancestors. Let us be bold and courageous and break from what has been keeping us back.
Based on the above, I humbly submit that we play our rugby in Boland. Why? – to ground the game again, to make people connect with local rugby again, to make the game more accessible to spectators again as not all spectators get to attend the games played in Cape Town, to create more opportunities for our young players to advance their game, to give hope to our children and make them dream again, and lastly to tap into the current strategic partnerships Boland Rugby has entered into in recent times to advance the game in the region.
Let us have a collective local resolve to take the game of rugby in Paarl further, let us build a local identity of our own and establish a real Boland DNA that will make us better, stronger and set us apart. But to get there will require our administrators to lead strongly.
Our rugby administrators should embrace change, they must start to gaze into the future of their clubs and take others along with them, they must be bold and brave and put this matter on the agenda of their next AGMs, they must lead the strategic conversations on this matter and lead Paarl rugby into a future that we are all deserving of.
