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Caligastia
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I have been thinking about this lately because I was talking about it with a professional rugby player from South Africa. The topic came up when I commented on South Africa's poor rugby performance in recent years. The player I spoke to blamed it partly on racial quotas.
Here is a link to a discussion on the BBC website:
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/low/eng...3000/413504.asp
These posts probably sum up my opinion the best:
quote:
SHOULD THERE BE RACIAL QUOTAS FOR RUGBY?
Certainly not. There is no more patronising way to try and even things out there. Think of the players and the treatment they could possibly receive trying to mix. The logical way to get Black players into SA rugby is by combining the domestic league system. They have started gradually doing that with their Cricket. Another point is that sports are a parochial phenomenon. Take Australia for instance. Rugby League is the predominant sport in my region, AFL in Victoria, Soccer with the Italian, Greek and Slavic citizens.
Justin Deegan, Australia
When my daughter was at university one of the brighter African students told her that she bitterly resented "equal opportunities" job adverts because it was a euphemism for saying 'This job will go to a black.' She told my daughter that if she got a good job no one would know whether she got it because she was the best person for the job, or because she was a black girl. The same will surely apply to sport and rugby. How sure of himself is the black rugby player going to feel when he can never know for certain whether he was included in the rugby team because he was the best, or because of the colour of his skin?
Joan, Zimbabwe
Racism is not being able to look further than the colour of one's skin. Therefore introducing quotas is racist - the whole idea of equal rights is to disregard race at a categoriser. Pick the best man (or woman) for the job. Positive discrimination is still racism.
Ross Parker, UK
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Some of you may be confused by references to "Springboks" and "All Blacks". The Springboks are the South African national rugby team and the All Blacks are the New Zealand national rugby team.
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Caligastia
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Yeah, I gotta agree with you about the maori/pacific islander quotas. I know a lot of fellow kiwis who resent that and I just dont think its worth it. Do you remember the Springbok tour of 81? you may be a little bit young to remember, but there was such a protest that the game was like a sideshow.
Keep politics out of sport I say.
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finbar
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Caligastia
Yeah, I gotta agree with you about the maori/pacific islander quotas. I know a lot of fellow kiwis who resent that and I just dont think its worth it. Do you remember the Springbok tour of 81? you may be a little bit young to remember, but there was such a protest that the game was like a sideshow.
Keep politics out of sport I say. |
Sorry, old son, I don't think you can keep politics out of sport. It's more than arguable that the sporting boycotts played a very important part in the dismantling of apartheid. What's more, sport has long been a tool of the politicians. Hitler, for example.
Your question about the quota system, though, is a good one. It has been argued that quotas are form of reverse racism. Seems to me that it's attacking the problem from the wrong end. The Springbok problem, to me, seems more to have parallels with the English cricket problem - the grassroots have been neglected. Tend to the grassroots - of all colour - and they might get somewhere.
And as far as their Super 12s are concerned, they simply have too many teams for their population. As do New Zealand.
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by finbar
And as far as their Super 12s are concerned, they simply have too many teams for their population. As do New Zealand. |
Well I wouldnt argue against the Chiefs being phased out, but could Australia handle another team? I dont think so. Not enough talent to go round...
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finbar
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:19
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quote:
Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
That Super 12 point is a fair one. I would say that OZ had too few (and NZ is denying more  ), but from our performances for the last coupla years I must agree. BUT, this year seem sto be different... |
Australia should have one more team. The South Africans should lose at least one team, possibly two. It would improve the standard of the competition enormously. Too many of the South Africans teams are sub-standard and not only because of the quota system. They (a) simply don't have the population; and (b) rugby isn't the national religion it is in New Zealand (see below). In fact, soccer is by far the most popular sport - and first choice - in South African non-white communities.
quote:
I don't know all that much about the racial spread in OZ teams, finbar - what are they like? I saw the ACT/NSW game a night or two ago and the most obvious one is of course that little bastard Gregan (good fun to watch, though). The NZ teams are highly mixed with Maori and Islanders, and this may be the greatest advantage of having so many teams. |
For starters, wee Georgie is actually of - if I recall correctly - Namibian origin, with one white parent. I forget which.
Andrew Walker - ACT winger/full back - is aboriginal. Jim Williams, recently retired ACT No 8, is aboriginal. There are a number of other aborigines in the Australian Super 12 teams. There are even more aborigines playing in the National Rugby Leage competition, though the combined numers - Rugby and League - wouldn't equate with the Maoris and Islanders in the NZ teams. Then again, the relative percentages in the respective populations wouldn't equate either.
Part of the problem is that Rugby in Australia still carries the Private School/privileged background label. The aborigines playing representative rugby have mainly crossed over from League.
In general, NZ has an overall advantage in that Rugby is, effectively, a national religion. Here, Rugby competes with League (in the traditional Rugby states) and Australian Rules in the non-Rugby/League states. And, in South Africa, it competes - unsuccessfully - against soccer in the non-white communities. That's the real problem the South African rugby people have to confront.
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finbar
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:19
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quote:
Originally posted by ravagon
I don't know about the Australian rugby union teams at provincial/suburban level, as WA doesn't seem to cover that as much in favour of Aussie rules, but the Aussie rules teams don't seem to have many players of aboriginal descent (or players recognized as being of aboriginal descent). Whether because of its lack of popularity maybe, rather than a lack of ability? |
There have been a number of aboriginal Aussie Rules players over the years - going back to the early 1970s - and the numbers are growing. Many, in fact, have come out of the West. I think it's mainly a matter of opportunity.
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I think the point here though was that Australia would have to scrape together players from all over.  Another team would not be representative of the area they hailed from. |
Football teams - of any code - hardly ever reflect their players' origins anymore. A sad thing to some extent, I think. Australian Rules has lost a lot of its meaning - to me, anyway - since it has turned into a corporate exercise.
In terms of the Super 12 teams - the ACT Brumbies team is made up of largely New South Wales players who were rejected by NSW. Which only reflects on the judgement of ther NSW authorities at the time. The make up of the New Zealand Super 12 teams have, to an extent, been dictated by the All Blacks selectors - moving players around to maximise opportunities.
quote:
Additionally, if SA lost teams based on their merits (or lack thereof at present) it would pretty soon be back to an all (or almost all) Aus/NZ makeup. ie: Not nearly as interesting internationally. |
There's nothing terribly interesting about seeing teams being thrashed. It's also bad for the thrashed team - its players and supporters - and the overall game itself.
South Africa, unfortunately, has big problems with its Rugby. They lose their best players to Europe because they - the SA Union - can't match the money that European teams offer. In fact, it's said that most of the current Springboks side will be gone before the next World Cup. Add the fact that Union is only the natural first choice amongst the white community and you've got a difficult situation. But one thing's for sure - having your teams regularly thrashed does nothing for the future of the game in your country.
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finbar
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:19
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quote:
Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Well, ravagon, I'm no expert, but then again few here seem to know exactly what was the problem, let alone what the NZRFU was even thinking, but IIRC one of the demands on World Cup venues was that the stadia be advertisement free. For some reason the NZRFU refused this criterion and hence the problem. They tried to get away with it by showing the cleanliness of the stadia, to no avail.
I really can't say any more, not even the local news has been very enlightening. Basically we don't know what's wrong, and I'm shocked that there's no huge scandal currently decimating the ranks of the NZRFU. |
The NZ administrators were quoted as saying their national provincial competition depended on the advertising signage and the national provincial competition was more important than the World Cup. As I suggested elsewhere in this thread, I think they believed they could call the World Cup's bluff. And it didn't work. The Australians took advantage of their utter stupidity.
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by finbar
The NZ administrators were quoted as saying their national provincial competition depended on the advertising signage and the national provincial competition was more important than the World Cup. As I suggested elsewhere in this thread, I think they believed they could call the World Cup's bluff. And it didn't work. The Australians took advantage of their utter stupidity. |
This sounds a little one-sided to me. I dont really know the full story, but wasnt there also the issue that under the conditions stipulated (ie no advertising) it would not be financially feasable for NZ?
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by finbar
in South Africa, it competes - unsuccessfully - against soccer in the non-white communities. That's the real problem the South African rugby people have to confront. |
I would hazard a guess that this would be a much greater factor in keeping black players out of rugby than racism. As you said, the players in the apartheid era were more anti-apartheid than the admin, so with those players of yesterday becoming coaches and administrators today I would think that racist attitudes have improved in the last few years.
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Carver
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reprocessing plutonium, Yongbyon, NK
Jan 2002
time: 23:19
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Caligastia, once again trying to pretend white racsism doesn't exist (or almost doesn't exist). South Africa's democratization was only eight years ago. Racsism pervades every sector of white society. Blacks will not get a fair shot without affirmative action. The National Party apartheid government tried to imprint the notion of white supreamacy on the minds of blacks from every angle. Politics, business, movies, the racsist Republic Day celebrations, the pass laws, "Bantu education" - which SA's Minister of Education said was designed to teach blacks that they are inferior.
After that horror - which you cannot imagine (really, you can't) - the government needs to ensure that blacks become active in all sectors of SA society. Many whites in positions of power insist blacks are inferior and refuse to give them any respect; for example the Afrikaaner soldiers who refuse to salute their black superiors. Knowing that kind of attitude exists, the only way to ensure equal access is to force these institutions to include a number of blacks - hence, affirmative action.
Sometimes there aren't all these other factors besides racsism that you seem to want to find. You need to realize blacks don't just make up racsism. In South Africa it is very real.
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by Carver
Sometimes there aren't all these other factors besides racsism that you seem to want to find. You need to realize blacks don't just make up racsism. In South Africa it is very real. |
I never said white racism doesnt exist, I just think in this case it is not the main reason why blacks are not playing much rugby in SA.
As Finbar said:
quote:
in South Africa, it competes - unsuccessfully - against soccer in the non-white communities. That's the real problem the South African rugby people have to confront. |
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finbar
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Caligastia
This sounds a little one-sided to me. I dont really know the full story, but wasnt there also the issue that under the conditions stipulated (ie no advertising) it would not be financially feasable for NZ? |
Well, that's what they said. It was, at the time, part of a bigger gripe the NZers had about the funding of, apart from other things, the Super 12 competition. They wanted a better deal in relation to the TV rights. Which was the main reason why NZ denied the Australians an extra Super 12 team. Somehow, NZ allowed the fiscal argument to bleed across into the World Cup debate.
Cal, it was never a case that there would be NO ADVERTISING allowed at the grounds. The point was, the World Cup has its sponsors who would be advertising - which is to say, in temporary place of the existing advertisers. In fact, what the NZ administrators stood to lose from the temporary disappearance of the existing advertising would, obviously, have been made up for by the massive income the World Cup would have generated in other ways. The NZ administrators DID try to argue that it would cost them the existing advertising revenue, but the argument was always fallacious.
I can only think that the NZ administrators were trying to call the World Cup's bluff. If they weren't - if there was no strategy behind their thinking - then they're even bigger idiots than I thought.
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ravagon
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Australia
Sep 1999
time: 13:19
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quote:
Originally posted by finbar
We had a farcical situation here in the Summer with the SA cricket team. The SA selectors picked a team for one of the Tests, but the head of the SA Cricket Board overruled the selectors and included a non-white player to make up a quota. Which only succeeded in putting intolerable pressure on the poor guy involved. He failed dismally in the first innings and battled personfully in the second. |
That would have been Justin Ontong?
Actually he struck me as looking like a rather talented player, albeit as you say under a bit too much pressure. He reminded me very much of Ken Rutherford just starting out in his first encounter with the Windies in the Windies. Ended up at the end of the series with a high score of about 60 or so and an average of about 8 IIRC.
I hope he manages to bounce back the way Rutherford did.
Ntini OTOH (whose first name completely eludes me) had a pretty successful series overall with the ball. Was he another brand new introduction or had he played in ODI's/Tests before?
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21-04-2002 09:41
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