IN MY VIEW | The battle is on to revive schoolboy rugby in the townships

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Much has been written in the last week about township schoolboy rugby.

I’ve been coaching at Ithembelihle since 1979 and experienced the popular Wednesday league, attended by huge crowds, in the townships.

Then came the new South Africa and it ended, replaced by the Coke/Powerade, Peter Mkata and Dennis Botha competitions.

They all stopped for various reasons.

I kept on going with my side, Ithembelihle.

Spur sponsored us from 2006 till this year but has now withdrawn because we hardly play anymore.

In my time, we have beaten all the top schools, bar Grey High, whom we ran very close in 2009. They were captained by Siya Kolisi and we went down 29-20 in a hard-fought game.

In 2012, we were named SA’s top schoolboy side at the South African Sports Awards.

From about 2016, things changed as many boys left to play for former Model C schools.

I then, with the help of Spur, Ewan Kromhouts’s Fortis products and Pieter Jordaan’s Gun Shack, collected all the best rugby players from all over the townships, as well as the northern areas and non-rugby playing schools in the city, to play for me.

This cost me a lot of money to pay for their transport to practices and games, on an unmarked field littered with rocks.

The boys played in the league, went to festivals at Grey, Grens, Gill and Union High.

They played the top teams.

From 2024 we started struggling to get the boys to practice as they suddenly had extra classes till five in the afternoons and from 8am-2pm on Saturdays.

Because of the few games we played, Spur withdrew their sponsorship after 20 years.

I was about to give up when I got a call from Dan Ngcape, telling me that Saki Macozoma wanted to get involved with club and schoolboy rugby.

I got another call from AM Security; they also want to get involved.

Jaco Kirsten, from Crusaders, then offered us their field.

So, the plan is to get transport to the venue and have the boys practise on a decent field from 4-6pm on a Tuesday and Thursday, and play on a Saturday.

We are also busy talking to JB Mali, who can get Algoa Bus to assist us.

Township rugby is weak at the moment‚ so the only answer is to combine all the best players from all over into one team to train and play for us, with the help of these sponsors.

I want to get teams from U13 to U19 to play in the league.

There’s enough talent.

Matt Sexton always visits us for coaching clinics when he is here.

Nico Serfontein from Saru is willing to bring the Mobi unit and SA Legends to assist us.

Now we need the co-operation of clubs and schools so that we can get it off the ground.

This is the only solution to get these boys playing in the league every weekend and in all the festivals.

The townships are a gold mine of talent — let’s pray everything falls in place.