Doha - Having good travel plans are essential in the quest for success for South African rugby teams.
It is no coincidence that the Stormers and Bulls contested the first United Rugby Championship final, considering the fact that SA sides generally struggled in Super Rugby.
While the New Zealand teams were good, what most SA players and coaches would tell you is that travelling to Australasia had a debilitating effect.
Travelling to Europe for URC games is much more comfortable due to the time zones being similar. But things can always be better, and that is why the Qatar Airways partnership announced on Sunday in Doha will make the lives of the SA teams significantly easier.
Bulls coach Jake White spoke just yesterday at the local URC season launch in Midrand about some of the challenges they had to face in the last campaign in getting to Europe, and things will be ramped up with participation in the Champions Cup in 2022-23.
“To fly around the world to get to Europe is not ideal. Flying economy class is not ideal either,” White said.
“One of the selling points to the group of players was that when we came from Super Rugby, flying business class to Sydney, you wouldn’t be that far away from home that often (by playing in Europe).
“But we could go to Exeter one week, come back (home) one week and play here, go back to URC (in Europe). And if you are flying economy class, and you’ve got to fly via the whole world to get there …
“I know we’ve now got an airline sponsor in Qatar, so hopefully that will be addressed.”
That should be solved now, with Qatar Airways’ world-class Qsuite business-class section, which was recognised as the best in the world at the 2021 Skytrax World Airline Awards.
But while the Qatar deal will solve practical travel problems, the whole transaction could actually be a gamechanger for the rugby world.
Even European Professional Club Rugby chief executive Anthony Lepage mentioned at the Doha event on Sunday about needing to build on the “traditional” rugby market and look at new horizons.
URC chief executive Martin Anayi added that rugby organisations “have all been working in silos for too long … somebody thinks somebody else is doing better than they are. The reality is that the game is still very young in terms of professionalisation”.
Considering where rugby was during the Covid-19 lockdown – SA Rugby alone had to cut R1.2billion from their budget during that period – the Qatar partnership has shown the way.
The continued search for a solution to a global rugby calendar often results in fingers being pointed at English and French clubs for refusing to budge on their season, but there needs to be compromises from all sides.
Rugby is a niche sport when you look at its global footprint, but in order for it to survive and grow to become truly popular across the world, all parties need to work together and find new solutions by bringing in fresh partners and ideas – even if it means upsetting the “old farts”, as Will Carling put it previously …
The oval-ball game needs to develop to the extent that it’s best players and coaches also edge closer to earning to their true potential as well, like in football and Formula 1.
@AshfakMohamed