Bulls coach: Boks’ overseas player policy needs a rethink!

On Wednesday, the Bulls confirmed that they had agreed to an early release for Springbok prop Trevor Nyakane, who will soon join French club Racing 92.

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It adds to a local landscape where numerous current Springboks play their rugby overseas, with SA Rugby having adopted an ‘open policy’ to picking players based abroad.

South Africa’s director of rugby Rassie Erasmus has widely acknowledged that SA Rugby simply can’t afford to keep many of the leading players in the country due to the current exchange rate and nature of the lucrative offers that come in from cash-flush overseas clubs.

From a Springbok perspective at least, the approach is to allow for overseas teams to effectively have South Africa’s leading players on their payroll, while the Boks can still benefit from selecting them.

Bulls coach calls for discussion on the subject

However, with Nyakane – who has been at the Bulls since 2015 – set to join a legion of South Africans playing overseas, former Bok coach White believes a conversation needs to begin around this subject.

“If you’re looking after your franchise, you don’t want guys like Trevor just playing 5 or 6 games a year and you never really see them.    

“Surely if overseas clubs in England or France were in the same position, they surely wouldn’t buy those players? Looking at the Trevor model, it’s not ideal. It’s probably better for them to go overseas.”

“What has to be looked at going forward, as a franchise coach, is overseas players being picked for South Africa. Is that going to be forever? Because it’s going to be to the detriment of franchise rugby. That’s a fact,” said White.

“We see it all over the world. We see it in Australia with the Giteau rule – where you have to have played a certain amount of Tests – and whether guys like Will Skelton should be picked.

“The Irish and New Zealand model has a strict no overseas-based players rule. I’m wearing my franchise hat here and I don’t know what the answer is. If you only get top players for five games, is it worth keeping them? I’m not so sure. 

“The current return on investment doesn’t allow you the luxury of having such players on the books as well as having a salary cap in place. We’re not as adversely affected, but imagine sides like the Stormers and Sharks with all their Boks? It’s a completely different situation. I’d like to hear their views.”

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