SA Rugby chief Oberholzer pours cold water on White's Bok complaints

SA Rugby chief executive officer Rian Oberholzer scoffed at Bulls director of rugby Jake White's season-long suggestion of having more overseas-based Springboks playing in South Africa, saying it wasn't financially feasible.
In the aftermath of last week's 32-7 United Rugby Championship final loss to Leinster in Dublin, White said he needed what the Irish super province has.
Oberholzer pointed out that the Bulls fielded 12 Springboks in their game against Leinster while also having a key player, Elrigh Louw, out injured.
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SA Rugby chief executive officer Rian Oberholzer poured cold water on Bulls director of rugby Jake White's season-long bleating about wanting the Springboks' overseas contingent to ply their trade in South Africa, saying the policy of having players overseas won't change.
After last week's 32-7 United Rugby Championship (URC) final loss that the Bulls suffered against Leinster to lose a third showpiece game, White said he needed what Leinster had from a quality depth-in-strength perspective.
The well-resourced Leinster provides the spine of the Irish men's national rugby team. Several players were on the British and Irish Lions team that played Argentina in Dublin on Friday, from where they'll be headed to Australia.
White's messaging regarding the players that are not in the country has been consistent throughout the season despite the Bulls being the best South African team in the URC in the past two seasons.
'I need what Leinster have,' White said after the final.
'I need to be able to fight fire with fire.
'Leinster, Toulouse, La Rochelle... what do you need to win those games? Academy players or seasoned internationals?
'I'd like to sit in the coaches' box, be 19-nil up and be able to call up RG Snyman so he can menace the defence like he did today.
'You're in a dream world if you think that a club team that's made up of... I counted; we had eight players who weren't internationals finishing off the game.
'How do you expect eight non-internationals playing provincial rugby to beat 'Ireland'?'
Oberholzer pointed out that the Bulls had 12 Springboks in their match-day line-up and that having players overseas helps significantly with their wage bill across the four URC franchises.
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South Africa is one of the few rugby nations that consistently picks players who don't play in South Africa. This lessens the wage bill, as players also benefit from a weak rand and bigger overseas purses.
'One of our strengths is that we, as South Africa, allow our players who are internationals to play overseas,' Oberholzer told News24 at the Boktown launch at the AB Inbev offices in Bryanston on Friday.
'You need to look at the salary saving that we have with our players who are playing in Japan, France and England.
'We still have the total talent pool available for us, and we will not change that because it's a huge strength of ours that we can pick players who don't play here.
READ | Eben on Jake's calls for star Boks to return to SA: 'Would be great, but a bit impractical'
'We often talk about the Boks playing in our national teams, and we tend to forget [that] the Bulls team that played last week had 12 Springboks.
'One must be careful of falling into the trap of saying we don't have the players in South Africa, because we do have them.
'This was our [fourth] URC season and SA has played in all of them. We're doing well with what we've got here.'
Bulls utility forward Ruan Nortje, who started at flank in last week's final and has been capped as a Bok through his consistent efforts, chose to sidestep the matter with some diplomacy.
'I'm not going latch onto, or make a comment regarding what Jake said,' Nortje said.
'What we need to do is to be better.'
His Bulls teammate Elrigh Louw, who is recovering from a knee injury he sustained in January against the Lions that'll keep him out for the rest of the year and some change of early next year, was firmer in his response.
'I'm not going to comment on what Jake said,' Louw said
SA Rugby recently declared a R93 million loss, which is far better than some of the losses incurred by the other rugby nations.
Their financial outlook is set to improve for this financial year when SA Rugby becomes a shareholder in the URC and the European Professional Club Rugby setups.
SA Rugby has been paying for its participation in the URC and the two EPCR competitions, which has set back its finances but was also necessary.
This may lead to conversations about salary caps for the South African teams so that they can compete with their European rivals.
Rob Houwing | Bok season start: STILL a shortage of spring chickens at scrumhalf
The South African salary cap currently stands at R127 million per team for the year, something Oberholzer hopes will remain the same in the next financial year.
'It's a participation saving because if you look at the net investment we had to make in 2024, [it] was R124 million,' Oberholzer said.
'We invested in playing in the URC, and we don't have to do that anymore, and I wouldn't like to see the salary caps increase.
'That's a challenge if we start to pay salaries that are too high because the unions and the teams would be under more pressure.
'Hopefully, the salary cap won't be upped, but we also need the competition to be ensured in the URC,' Oberholzer added.

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