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Southern Kings Name Coach - Where Will They Fit? 15 views 7 Comments
14 April 2012 by The Swede Eaters

Matt Sexton has been named coach of Southern Kings, where will the Southern Kings fit?

Former Crusader Matt Sexton will coach the Southern Kings when they make their Super Rugby debut in 2013. He is in for a baptism of fire given how difficult it is for new teams in this tough competition. Sides like the Rebels and Force have struggled early on, especially coming up against more established Super Rugby teams. The other question remains, where will the Southern Kings fit in this competition?

The problem

Having an extra South African team will make the competition uneven with six South African teams and five from each of Australia and New Zealand. South Africa does have the population and television audience to warrant another team, but they haven't really been dominant enough to warrant having another team based on performance. I personally think that on past performance the Lions should be relegated, otherwise can you see any South African rivals wanting to amalgamate to accommodate the Kings?

The Lions have been disappointing not only in recent times, but over the past decade and must be a candidate to be relegated out of the competition. This is crazy given that they have done so well in Currie Cup competitions and have a massive population base. While they are geographically close to the Bulls, there is such rivalry that it is unlikely that any of the teams would want to amalgamate.

This is written from a New Zealand perspective, but how will the new Southern Kings be fitted into the Super Rugby competition in 2013? Should they take the place of the Lions, should South Africa be given a sixth team or should the newly formed Australian teams like the Rebels, Force or even one of the smaller New Zealand teams be thrown out?

I would be interested to here a South African perspective on this issue. What are your thoughts?

http://www.superrugbytips.com/2012/04/matt-sexton-to-coach-southern-kings-how.html

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	7 . Flapjack Spartans 20 Apr 2012 06:35 AM [continued] Like I said above, I do think it's the duty of a governing body to promote the sport in all areas. So I do think SARU had a duty to see what they could do to include the Kings in Super Rugby. Unfortunately, the way they did it seems poorly planned and I understand the frustrations of the masses. Personally, I don't think it would've been unfair to expect the Kings to first get themselves into the Currie Cup Premier Division. However, this was never required by SARU. You can't really blame the Kings for that. As for the Kings, recruitment would obviously be extremely important over the next few months. The appointment of Matt Sexton as head coach has freed up current head coach and Director of Rugby Alan Solomons to concentrate on getting the squad together for next season. They will be targeting South African players playing in Europe (unfortunately, that usually means they're coming to the end of their careers and will only have more season or so left in them), players out of contracts at other South African franchises (and if a franchise is relegated from Super Rugby, it will mean a raid on that franchise) as well as players from the region (offering them the opportunity to come home and play Super Rugby for their regional team). How successful this is remains to be seen. Since the Cats franchise split into the Lions and the Cheetahs in 2006, the Lions have finished in the bottom three every single season, including losing all their games in 2010. They are obviously the franchise at most risk of dropping out, despite winning the Currie Cup last time round, so there might be a significant number of players moving between those two franchises. Lastly, the one aspect of the Kings I've decided to not mention thus far - politics. Sadly, the Kings' inclusion will be tainted by the fact that there are a lot of political pressure to get them included. It is the region with the largest amount of black rugby players in South Africa (the majority of them having no access to any rugby facilities or playing in extremely poor conditions). The hope is that the influx of money through Super Rugby will also be pushed into the community to further develop rugby and achieve a level of transformation. Again, no idea how this will pan out. I fully expect the Kings to be one of the worst teams in Super Rugby, but if they can finish outside the bottom three some time before 2017 and money is invested at grassroots level, producing a few more players from the region, then this decision might prove to be the correct one. In the meantime, there will be several angry supporters wishing the franchise all the misfortune in the world, though. Suffice to say, fun times ahead.
	6 . Flapjack Spartans 20 Apr 2012 06:35 AM I'm a Kings fan (yes, I know - boo! hiss!), but here's my take on things. Surely, the governing body of any sport should try and ensure that the sport is being promoted in all regions in its jurisdiction? In the case of South Africa, the Eastern Cape region has never had the opportunities of the other regions. Admittedly, a lot of that had to do with very poor management of rugby in the area, but there's been a few attempts to correct that. Firstly with the failed Southern Spears franchise, now with the Southern Kings franchise. This is a region with more registered rugby players than in all of New Zealand, but with no Super Rugby. A lot of work has been done off the field to get the infrastructure in place - the superb Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is now the home ground of the Kings, an academy has recently been set up (which was lacking before), the area recently successfully hosted the South African leg of the World Sevens series, etc. So, off the field, a lot of work has been done to bring the proposed franchise up to scratch. On the field is a different problem. Since the Kings can't offer any players a pathway into Super Rugby, they can't attract any Super Rugby quality players and in fact consistently lose players to other franchises. Even at some of the smaller unions, players can play Super Rugby (eg. Griquas players are eligible to play for the Cheetahs, Boland Cavaliers players for the Stormers, etc.) - an option not available to the Kings. So, lack of Super Rugby severely prevents recruitment of quality players. Georg Straub1 and real ron said they couldn't even qualify for the Currie Cup Premier Division. Correct, but they did beat all the South African teams not playing Super Rugby last season - they beat the Griquas, Leopards and Pumas in the Vodacom Cup and the Boland Cavaliers once in the league. In the play-offs, they lost to the Boland Cavaliers (not that that would've made any difference, since there was no promotion to the Premier Division anyway!). The Kings also flew out to Romania when the other teams rested to take part in the IRB Nations Cup, where they beat Georgia, Romania and Portugal - teams that played in the World Cup a few months later. They're not the best team out there, but not as bad as some are making out. Team Kruger mentioned the 88-0 defeat. Yes, true, but put it into context. SARU gave the Kings 5 friendly games to play in 3 weeks. The game against the Lions was a midweek game, so the Kings rested their entire first team who played 3 days earlier AND 3 days later. Also, one of the members unions - the SWD Eagles - played a Vodacom Cup warmup game against Western Province. So it was effectively their 3rd to 4th choice team against the strongest possible Lions team. [tbc]
	5 . Georg Straub1 18 Apr 2012 04:35 AM It is total and utter crap that the kings get a spot in super rugby when they cannot even qualify for the currie cup premier division. And even if they do get a spot all that is going to happen all the top players from the franchise that gets thrown out will just go play for the spears or kings or whatever they are.
	4 . jasongerm 16 Apr 2012 09:34 PM Go Kings! Awe!
	3 . real ron 16 Apr 2012 08:48 PM I think that the cheethas and the lions will form the cats again to make room for the kings and to still keep 5 south african teams. Personally I think this is an embarrassment as a south african rugby supporter. Even the boland beat the kings bad in the first division final. So don't boland deserve it more? and then there is still the griquas and the pumas who is better.
	2 . Team Kruger 16 Apr 2012 06:26 PM Just to add to the above comments....in a pre-season warm up game i think the Lions(doing really bad in the super 15) beat The Southern Spears something like 88-0.
	1 . SW VI 15 Apr 2012 11:05 AM There is a lot of infighting in South African rugby regarding this issue. At least for the foreseeable future, it has been made clear by the SA Rugby Union and SANZAR that SA will not be getting a sixth team in the competition. SANZAR made it clear that the Super Rugby franchise, as it stands at present with the 15 teams, is signed and set with broadcasting deals until end of the 2015 season. What complicates this is the fact that SARU have gone on record and signed contracts apparently ensuring the Kings a spot in the 2013 Super Rugby system. It would thus seem that the only real option would be that there is going to be some sort of a relegation arrangement, though this has not been made official (to my knowledge). The problem further is that, judging by pre-season warm-up games, the Kings aren't exactly a force to be reckoned with and - in my honest opinion - they would take an old school beating from structured and established sides like the Crusaders and Brumbies for example. The Kings simply are not ready to compete on that level yet. The Lions are certainly disappointing in general, but one can at least say that they are far from a walkover this season. The scorelines often do not reflect the intensity of play. For a fair bit last weekend, I thought they were going to cause a proper upset against the 'Saders. The Lions undeniably have a lot of heart, as do the Kings, but the question then becomes: is heart really all that you need to succeed in this competition?

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