Boland Kavaliers coach Hawies Fourie says the Vodacom Bulls, Stormers, Sharks and Lions should not be guaranteed their places in the Vodacom URC.
Fourie was in charge of the Cheetahs when they were kicked out of the then Pro14, with SA’s four Super Rugby franchises joining an expanded, rebranded URC in 2021.
“We have a lot of talent at school level [in South Africa] that needs to come through,” he told Netwerk24. “To only be able to go to four teams, I don’t believe is the right recipe. There is more than enough talent at school level to be distributed between more unions.
“I think South Africa has enough good players for 10 strong provincial teams. In my heart, I still believe for all these years that this will be the right model. You can’t have 10 URC teams, but there has to be a way to be able to compete to be one of the four.”
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Fourie, who recently helped Boland earn promotion to the Currie Cup Premier Division, said the Lions hadn’t justified their place in the URC.
“When you look at the reasons given to the Cheetahs in 2019 for their exclusion in favour of, for example, the Lions, I don’t feel like I see what was told to us at the time.
“There are not many spectators at Ellis Park. It’s not that a lot of money is generated in their URC matches or that there is a lot of interest. The only thing that is easier is that there are direct flights from overseas to Johannesburg, which is not the case with Bloemfontein.
“They [SA Rugby] felt that the Lions’ location puts them in a better commercial position than the Cheetahs. You have to take an extra flight to Bloemfontein and hotels are not as readily available.
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“It doesn’t seem to me that there is more interest, more people and sponsors, or more money generated within the stadium [Ellis Park] than the Cheetahs probably would.”
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