Next time, Boks must bring the cup to villages

It’s been a good month for our country on one front, rugby – after the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in France when they beat New Zealand on October 28.

It has also been a tiring time for the Springboks who had to go on a victory tour with the Webb Ellis Cup after they returned home last Tuesday, October 31.

The world champs visited chosen towns in certain provinces including the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

I must say, they did well to satisfy many followers even though there will always be negative talk about the tour.

Some populists have even gone on to question the team’s composition and the Springbok emblem. I asked myself why only now?

As much as I also had my concerns about the tour, I feel for these boys. We are abusing their bodies because the competition has been gruelling and they needed time to recover. We should have made the tour next year or no tour at all. I know by next year some will be with their local teams and the vibe would have died down, but I feel these tours are too demanding and unnecessary.

What is concerning for me about the tour is that the countryside, the rural areas and villages, have been omitted.

Have you noticed that in everything happening in this country it does not include villages, farms and rural areas or is it just me?

As a village boy, I am far from being happy with the Springbok World Cup Tour. It cannot be right to say this sport unified us when rural communities are not taken seriously. This country does not take villages seriously at all. I mean in everything except election time. There is no service delivery even though they have municipalities.

One thought after winning this world cup – someone up there should consider the villages for a tour. It would have been a real historic cup for me if the schedule for this tour included a lot of rural areas. I do not care whether those areas are in Limpopo, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, KZN or Mpumalanga. That would have inspired and encouraged a child from the villages to push hard for his future and see that at least the country includes him or her in its plans.

Even in 2019, after the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in Japan, they were never considered.

And let me bet, even if the Springboks win another world cup tomorrow, no one would care that there are fans in the villages, that the villages belong to this South Africa that says it is united by the sport of rugby in particular.

I hear the South African Rugby Union (SARU) talking about more satellite tours set for next year. Please know that those satellites are towns and cities not Cofimvaba, Ngcobo, Mlamli, Phelindaba or Qimirha villages. One hopes that the Saru will not disappoint us and change some of the venues.

Personally I do not buy the statement by Saru that locations had been selected by population size. They just want to be technical with villagers. I could care less if they did not go to Gqebera or Bloemfontein. I would be happy if they visited farming area like Ceres and others somewhere in the north, or go to Kakamas.

These tours are diving the united county. But for now, leave the team to rest and recover after what was a tough world cup. Stop politicising the team. Whoever played or was part of the team deserved it. Go Bokke!