Playing time of professional senior rugby players across all levels of South African rugby, 2007 -2012: implications for transformation

Abstract

A single governing body to govern South African rugby was formed in 1992. This allowed for changes to governmental policies to South African sport, resulting in South African sport being fully representative of the population. The South African Rugby Union (SARU) therefore has a continual challenge to make rugby fully representative at both provincial and national levels. Previously rugby has been dominated by white players at all levels. The SARU has implemented various programmes in order to accelerate the development of players of colour. Previously the success of these programmes has not been evaluated because the players representing different ethnic groups have not been quantified in a systematic way. The aim was to quantify playing time and playing numbers of South African professional rugby players of different ethnic groups from 2007 to 2012 at all professional levels (Springboks, Super Rugby, Currie Cup and Vodacom Cup). Quantifying playing time and playing numbers was done to establish changes in profile of South African rugby players across the given time period. Thus the efficacy of the SARU programmes to accelerate transformation was indirectly evaluated. A further aim was to determine if there had been a change in ethnic profiles between the various rugby unions from 2007 to 2012.