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Ministerial Support for Women’s Rugby

SA Rugby was excited about the prospect of working with the newly appointed minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Mr Gayton McKenzie, it said following a meeting in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Mr Mark Alexander, president of the South African Rugby Union (SARU), hosted the minister at SARU House to explain the organisation’s vision and answer questions.

In a wide-ranging conversation the prospects for women’s rugby came under the spotlight.

“We’re very happy with what we’ve heard from the minister on Wednesday,” said Mr Alexander. “We explained our programmes to him, and the minister has offered us a lot of support. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear what the minister has got to say, and we’ll be working very closely with him – particularly around women’s rugby.

“We need government to unlock certain funding areas for us, and we spoke about those today, as well as issues around CSI and things such as corporate investment. We’ve got a plan in place, and we’ll be working with government and take it from there.”

This was the first time a sports minister had visited SARU’s offices and Mr McKenzie told media the meeting had been “fruitful”.

The Minister said: “There are a lot of rumours about the SA Rugby Union, and I wanted to come and see for myself, and ask questions. I’m a guy who doesn’t mince my words, and I’m hugely impressed.

“What impressed me the most was the amount of pipeline players and how they work with the SA Rugby Legends and the Iqhawe programme, truly thinking about the next wave of players coming through.

“That excites me, as well as what they are doing for women’s sport. Where they have not managed to do something, we’re going to step in, talk to corporates and encourage them to say that they should get involved in women’s rugby.”

Mr McKenzie was also interested in school sport: “Rugby, through their development programmes, are ahead of the curve with local and schools sports. There are things I’m going to emulate from what I’ve seen here today.

“From government’s side, we need to step in at school level, and my motto this year is ‘a child in sport, is a child out of court’.”

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