SA Rugby CEO Rian Oberholzer says South African teams playing in European competitions must stop criticising the challenging schedule.
After their 56-17 loss at Leicester in the Champions Cup last week, Sharks coach John Plumtree said he had wanted to select his strongest team but couldn’t due to a fixture list that had his team playing the Vodacom Bulls at Kings Park in the Vodacom URC the following week.
“Players are not robots … and right now, the South African boys are treated like robots,” he added.
Oberholzer told Rapport newspaper it was time for SA teams to “make the best of the situation”.
“That is the reality. Our teams want to play in professional leagues and the United Rugby Championship and European competitions offer exactly that,” he said.
“The South African clubs have to live with the fact that they are competing in two competitions at the same time. It does not help our cause to be so critical.
“Remember, there are clubs in the European competitions [Champions Cup and Challenge Cup] that don’t want us there. We have to be careful not to shoot ourselves in the foot by constantly criticising a competition that we participate in by invitation. After all, it is our lifeblood.
“One must not forget that Super Rugby kicked us out. If it wasn’t for the URC and European competitions, we would only have Currie Cup rugby to play now.”
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Earlier this week, URC CEO Martin Anayi revealed that more than half of the tournament’s revenue came from South African broadcast and sponsorship deals.
“The URC works well for us. There is no plan to leave it,” Oberholzer said.
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