February 21 2007 at 07:28AM

By Angela Quintal

South African rugby lacks quality administrators and more black people should become involved in administration to speed up the sport’s transformation, according to South African Rugby Union (Saru) president Oregan Hoskins.

Briefing the national assembly’s sport committee, he said while he often received calls for tickets to Test matches or to be flown around the country, no one was phoning to offer their services free of charge.

Hoskins said he only began receiving a salary when he became president of Saru and had worked for free when he headed KwaZulu-Natal rugby.

The problem with South African sport in general was poor administrators. “I see it in my own President’s Council. We do not have quality administrators, black and white.

If black people were prepared to get involved in administration, rugby’s transformation would be speeded up and a lot of problems resolved.”

However, “quality people” were not prepared to sacrifice for the good of the game.

National assembly sports committee chairperson Butana Komphela again raised concerns about the lack of representivity in the Springbok and Super 14 teams.

He noted that at the weekend the Sharks fielded only three black players, the Blue Bulls none, the Lions one, the Cheetahs two and the Stormers one.

Komphela and other ANC MPs on the committee took Saru to task for its about-turn on Eastern Province Rugby and an earlier decision to compel its executive to resign.

The committee and government had supported this move at a meeting with Saru last year, but were shocked when Saru backed off.

While Hoskins tried to explain that it was more to do with legal advice received rather than a change of heart, Komphela would have none of it.

Referring to Hoskins’s predecessor, Brian van Rooyen, Komphela said: “He was not a pushover. They (the President’s Council) think you are a pushover.”

ANC MP Cedric Frolick told the Cape Times there was an enormous breach of trust between the committee and Saru, as a result of the change of heart. “Now you can see why there is tension between Saru and the leadership of the committee,” he said.

On transformation in rugby, Frolick said Saru itself had told the committee previously that 70 percent of black rugby players were there (in the Eastern Cape) and that they would sort out the problems so that these players could move into the top levels in rugby.

“They have walked out on that as well. So now you question their overall commitment to transformation.”

Hoskins himself was saying that the figures were not satisfactory, “but what are they doing about it?” Frolick asked.

The transformation charter was beautiful on paper, but a year later, there had been no implementation.

“If you look at the warm bodies taking to the field every weekend, it is not reflected there.”

That makes TT the most well known Man in Wgton.

There will be so much pressure on the selectors to send x ammount of blacks that it will disrupt us totally.

true story.

A Task Team assembled by the WP Rugby Football Union executive to look into certain strategic matters affecting the union last year presented a few proposals on the way forward when the full board of WP Rugby (Pty) Ltd, the professional arm of the union, met in Cape Town on Monday.

Among those proposals was one that WP director of rugby, Mallett, be given back his executive powers and made fully responsible for the recruitment, hiring and firing of coaches as well as the recruitment of players. Should this proposal be adopted, it would mean WP divorces ifself from petty political and personality issues when decisions affecting the coaches are made, with the director of rugby’s coaching acumen and knowledge being relied on to make the appointments.

At the moment Mallett has no hold on the WP budget, and he was overruled by the board when last year he recommended, following his own investigation into the Stormers’ Super 14 failures, that Van der Merwe be replaced.

It was an open secret at the time that Mallett’s choice of coach to take over was Alan Solomons, the most successful coach in Stormers history and the man who took them to joint first position on the log when Bob Skinstad was captaining the team in 1999.

Solomons would probably be Mallett’s choice for the job again were he to be given the powers to make the decision, and it is understood that Solomons has already been sounded out about his availability in the event of the Stormers imploding on their overseas tour.

In such an event, a Plan B will be implemented, with another coach, Solomons being the most likely candidate, taking over for the home leg which begins with a match against the Lions on Easter Saturday. Although the Stormers are reluctant to drop a coach in mid-season, the board understands the need to be seen to make changes so that the confidence of the public can be regained so that crowd attendances can swell when the Stormers play at home in April.

Rudy Joubert, the former Bulls coach and Springbok assistant, who was axed as director of rugby at Boland on Monday, could be another option.

However, for the time being it is business as usual at Newlands, and Van der Merwe can save his job if he achieves his stated objective of winning every match on tour.

“We haven’t targeted specific matches. We are not going to New Zealand with pre-conceived notions of some teams being strong and some teams being weak,” said Van der Merwe before departure for the five match away leg.

“We are taking the attitude that all the games will be damn difficult. We want to win all of them if we can. That is our aim.”

If this unlikely scenario came to pass, Van der Merwe will undeniably save his job, for no South African team has ever been so successful on an overseas tour in the Super rugby competition.

However, failure could place him in a difficult position, as he was told at the start of the season that a top half finish was a minimum requirement for him to save his job. Should his team lose all their matches, and this week’s game against the Highlanders in Dunedin is probably their easiest, then the writing will be on the wall.

According to WPRFU chief executive Theuns Roodman, the decision on Mallett’s powers will be taken at a union executive meeting next Monday.

“Several recommendations were made (at Monday’s meeting), a lot of views were aired and heard. But no decisions could be made, the recommendations have to be discussed and ratified at union executive level,” said Roodman.

“A Special Meeting is scheduled for next Monday to ratify our financial minutes for the year, and the executive will meet before that takes place.”

Kimberley IS a dusty, hot, boring old dump!

Should they pretend that it’s anything else?