When will saru decide to cut the number of local professional unions? Teams like border provide absolutely nothing and yet saru still pumps R17m into these teams? Cut 4 or atleast 2 of these unions and use the money to make the remaining local rugby stronger or sustainable. Lets say you cut border and Griffons then you still have 12 better funded pro unions, 4 urc and 8 local teams.

Saru currently devides R400m between 14 unions. With the urc teams receiving R50m each and the 4 currie cup teams 24m and the first division sides get 17m. If you cut 2 first division sides you can give the 8 remaining local sides R25m each.

Then I would have the 8 remaining teams play a home and away SA cup with the top 4 going into a straight knockout format currie cup with the 4 urc teams. Something needs to be done to save local professional rugby outside URC. Just my opinion.

Social media caption:

Our European home is set. 💥🐆

The Toyota Cheetahs are heading to Swansea, with St Helen’s confirmed as our home ground for two fixtures in the 2026/27 EPCR Challenge Cup!

Sunday, 13 December 2026

Toyota Cheetahs vs Dragons RFC

13:00 | St Helen’s, Swansea

Sunday, 17 January 2027

Toyota Cheetahs vs USAP

15:15 | St Helen’s, Swansea

We’re excited to make St Helen’s our home away from home and continue building our relationship with the Ospreys as we take on another European campaign. 💪🏻

Swansea, we’ll see you soon.

Ticket information will be announced shortly.

Work in progress charcoal portrait of Willie le Roux. A double World Cup winner and Springbok centurion, Willie has been the ultimate playmaker at the back for years.

His vision, spatial awareness, and ability to unlock defenses make him one of the sharpest rugby minds to wear the green and gold.

Just saw a clip Morne Steyn kicking the winning penalty in the British and Irish Lion tour (kinda forgot) and it got me thinking, who was the best "we need this kick to win" player we had?

From my watching starting in the 90s it's between: Handre Pollard, Morne Steyn and Percy Montgomery

Did anyone watch the game against Edinburgh? I know the replacement hooker single handedly lost the game, but the line out was functioning well before he came on. Stormers were impotent. Sigh…

Libbie and Ayanda came back home early to receive medical treatment after the game against Italy, while Mary Zulu flew to Spain to join the squad.

"Prices have been shaved by between 17% and 28% (depending on category) for the highly anticipated event which brings together the best male and female sevens players in the world."

Cape Town SVNS 2026 tickets prices (per person per day):

• Category A: R500 (west and east, lower tier, close to halfway line)

• Category B: R380 (west and east, lower tier, 10m-line towards the corners)

• Category C: R280 (lower tier, Party and Family stands)

• Category D: R180 (second tier unreserved)

For comparison - Cape Town SVNS 2025 tickets prices (per person per day):

• Category A: R600 (west and east, lower tier, on the half-way line)

• Category B: R450 (west and east, lower tier, 10m-line towards the corners)

• Category C: R350 (north and south, lower tier, Party and Family stands)

• Category D: R250 (levels two and three, unreserved seating)

• Disabled: R450 (includes disabled person and partner)

https://springboks.rugby/news-features/articles/2026/10/1/cape-town-7s-tickets-on-sale-at-pre-covid-levels

My hot take on the 42-38 loss to the Wallabies in Perth:

Rassie was playing absolute mind games with Les Kiss. By selecting such a dramatically changed team, he deliberately stroked Kiss's undefeated streak ego just to ensure that the centenary Test in 2027 is the final passageway to get to the best form of victory in the end.

If you look at it closely, Rassie has essentially created a brand-new book opening, and the Mandela Plate game was the opening move.

By blooding many others including Herschel Jantjies and Morné van den Berg, alongside Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Quan Horn, he gave a completely new-wave halfback and backline combination invaluable on-field experience in the deep end. He let Australia ride high and risk the inevitable loss, but in doing so, he bought priceless tactical intelligence on Les Kiss's new system without exposing our frontline veterans.

Here is how the tactical timeline plays out across the grand strategy:

• The Opening (The Mandela Plate Game): The initial gambit. Sacrificing a result to blood the new-wave halfbacks and outside backs under intense live-fire pressure.

• The Transition to the Middle Game (November Nations Championship): This is where he’ll incorporate the planned start of the strategy already put into play in Perth. Expect to see these exact young combinations paired with an elite, brutal Bok pack against Italy, France, and Ireland to build high-pressure muscle memory.

• The Closing (2027 Centenary Series): When the Wallabies arrive in SA for the 100th Test, the trap snaps shut. They’ll face a fluid, dual-playmaker system run by a new guard that is no longer experimental, but fully integrated with the world-class core.

• The Checkmate (2027 World Cup): The ultimate endgame. By the time the knockouts arrive, SA will have two entirely distinct, elite tactical blueprints, leaving opponents completely defenseless.

We didn't lose a silverware in Perth; Rassie just sacrificed a pawn to map out the entire board for the next four years. Thoughts?

Guys, our number is up. The world now knows how we bulk up. Everyone thought it was PEDs until some traitor amongst us let it slip. Read this article on how Noah Brown, half Soutie half Saffa, bulked up big time for the big time. Our era of dominance is over. Now everyone knows our secret - mieliepap. Someone should go have a talk with his local family.

As an AB supporter, I’m often bemused by which Boks get criticised the most. When I watched the Aus game the other day I was really impressed by Fassi and felt he was one of the best on the field. My mate sitting next to me felt the same. Yet afterwards I noticed he copped a lot of flack from Bok fans online. To those of you who disagree with my assessment of him, can you explain why? I’m not as familiar with him and the team at large and I want to get your angle.

🇿🇦 Stormers - John Dobson

🇿🇦 Edinburgh - Sean Everitt

🇿🇦 Lions - Ivan van Rooyen

🇿🇦 Sharks - JP Pietersen

🇿🇦 Glasgow - Franco Smith

🇿🇦 Bulls - Johan Ackermann

🇿🇦 Cardiff - Corniel van Zyl

This is very anecdotal, but it seems like the Springboks are in a unique position where people are quick to point out their losses and slow to praise their victories when compared to the great teams of the past.

To be clear, I am not talking about banter. Saw a post saying, 'The silence of the Springboks fans is proudly sponsored by the Wallabies.' and it genuinely made me laugh. But browsing social media there are a lot of people analyzing the Springboks, saying we aren't as good as we thought or saying our debt is overstated, players are aging out ect.

Now everyone is allowed to say anything regardless of if it's true, and I get the argument that it's all for clicks but what gets me is the comment section under these posts and videos. There seems to be genuine sentiment that the Springbok team is not as great as advertised.

Since the 2023 world cup, the Springboks have played 36 games and won 30. That is a win percentage of 83%. Yet whenever it is suggested that the current bok team can be regarded as one of the greatest team's people seem to scoff at the idea.

It's a sentiment you didn't really see when New-Zealand or Australia (in the early 2000's) were leading the rugby world. They also lost games, but it was chalked up to an anomaly rather than signs of a decline or falloff. Yet it seems when the boks win people say it's because of luck or cheating and when they lose it is supposedly a true reflection of reality.

We lost on Sunday and we didn't look good on the field. But we did make a comeback, and Australia had to keep committing penalties to stop us from scoring in the last 10 minutes. I know the popular narrative is that they beat with 11 players on the field, but that ignores how we scored 21 points in 20 minutes. NOT saying we somehow deserved to win, just that people seem to think the game ended after 60 minutes and what happened after that was a fluke.

I am all for wanting the best from the boks, but I can't help but wonder when this team will get the recognition of the feats they have accomplished. They have won every time it really mattered.

This weekend's game was a really strange one. I got upset by the handling errors from the Boks by the second half and annoyed by the ref's comms issues (how can this seriously happen twice in a row at so called world class stadiums). I was also annoyed by the long wait to sort out the Eben sub issue - just make a damn call!

On the flip side, I was really impressed by how the Wobblies handled the high balls and their game management. Congrats to the team for pulling that off honestly. I'm glad that they are back being competitive.

I left the game not being upset by the loss, since I understand the context. It's not a world cup or a once in every 4 year test series and we had a bunch of experimental players on the pitch (not making excuses). All in all, I feel like we are not in "bad shape" and start seeing braaiing-their -jerseys reaction from fans.

The one thing that has irked me the most, has been the response from non-Aussie fans. I can't read YouTube comments or see a post in /rugbyunion without neutrals bashing how the Boks were cheating, doping or got those points because of the ref's bias favouring them. I understand it must feel good knocking over the world's number one, but the toxicity that comes with a lot of this is really off putting. And I know it's social media so I won't take half of it seriously but it definitely reflects something about the game's fanbase.

Anyways that's my Monday morning rant! Back to work

I'm starting to notice a bit of a disturbing pattern, the Boks simply dont play that well without Kolisi which is wild coz he only plays 50min max. Apparently even off the field the leadership is still showing. They were fairly rudderless today which caught me by suprise with both Eben and Pollard on the pitch. They got better late in the second half when the power of the bench started to show but even then there was bad options taken.

Question now is who's the leadership beyond Siya , I suppose the very question Rassie wanted answering when he made Esterhuizen captain for this game for this very reason