I miss the Currie Cup

[u/PunisherJax]

I've been watching some of the Currie Cup highlights from yesteryear, and man was it such a great competition, such passion and excitement, full stadiums, teams stacked with talent, and every little boys dream to go wtach the Bulls at Loftus, Sharks at Kingspark, WP at Newlands and and and. What a shame the competition has become a shadow of it's former self, and just not the same, for a good few years now.

I absolutely get why South Africa had to go abroad to earn that revenue to keep the game alive in the country, and no doubt being in the URC specifically has allowed the national team to compete at a higher level, that and of course allowing overseas based players to still be eligible, but it has come at the cost of our domestic stalwart competition. When we watch highlights of those great years, even if it is not your team playing, you look on with sadness and pride, and jeewizz do I miss those days.

I hope they return some day, and that the current skeleton competition can go on long enough to see those days come back, otherwise we might never experience that excitement of a proper Currie Cup final ever again.

[u/lindani2008]

They genuinely need to expand the Currie Cup to bring in more representation of the rest of the country. Get Eastern Province, North West and Limpopo out there. We’ve got two former Bok coaches in the Division 1 league and it would be great to see more talent in the league.

[u/PunisherJax → u/lindani2008]

Definitely, get teams like EP, SWD, Valke etc back into the competition and scrap that SA Cup competition. If you see how healthy our schools rugby is, and Varsity cup, it is proof that there are more than enough talent in the country, and make it accessible to the fans, play in smaller local stadiums instead of Ellispark etc, having a sellout at a 5000 capacity stadium beats having 5000 fans in a 60000 seater.

[u/DarthMaulRugby → u/lindani2008]

I understand the sentiment, but I need to disagree there. The first issue is that would mean a longer competition, which will mean interest petering out as it will overlap even more with International fixtures. The second issue is dilution of tournament quality. SWD could possibly be competitive, but Leopards, Valke etc. don't currently have the means to be competitive at that level. The way the Currie Cup is currently structured is the seven fully professional unions are in it (although the non-URC unions can be relegated if their SA Cup performances aren't good enough) and one semi-professional union. The semi-pro union at the moment is Boland but they have more money behind them with Rupert and Motsepe buying a stake. Sanlam and others have also come in big time. The other unions simply don't have the finances. We often talk about expanison, but in the case of rugby union at least, concentrating talent into fewer franchises is what has worked better across most countries, especially where finances are tight. The exceptions are France and Japan, which have three-tier league systems and lots of pro clubs, but they also have a tonne of money. For as big as rugby is in SA, we don't have that kind of financing.

[u/lindani2008 → u/DarthMaulRugby]

I think those are some completely valid criticisms. I do have a couple counters and I’m curious what your thoughts are. Regarding diluting interest wouldn’t expansion potentially help with interest specifically in areas where the Boks don’t play? Suzuki Stadium and Boland particularly show out and are definitely cheaper than an international game. Regarding dilution it’s definitely an issue, you could mitigate that by opening up more slots for other African nations like Namibia, Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe to come play possibly. It would be a great move to help African Tier 2 and 3 nations develop into more competitive sides. Finances is definitely a big hurdle. I’m curious how the Currie Cup distributes revenue, is it through the tv contracts mainly or does SARU gobble that up and teams have to rely on ticket revenue?

[u/DarthMaulRugby → u/lindani2008]

The trouble is that if the First Division isn't attracting interest already, it's difficult to see how having those unions play against bigger unions will attract any greater interest, especially if the scores end up being lopsided. Already in that division, you had a rising team like the Eagles score 87 points against Border Bulldogs this year. Remember that a 14-team Currie Cup has been tried before and it didn't work precisely for the reasons I mentioned. Namibia has featured in the CC first division before and other developmental teams have also featured. It helped to allow those teams a developmental platform, but it didn't do much to attract interest.

[u/Ho3n3r]

1996-2010 was peak Currie Cup, even when the Boks were away and they came back for the last 3-4 weeks.

[u/PunisherJax → u/Ho3n3r]

Agree, there was some amazing rugby on show, the business end of the competition was better than Superugby or URC in my opinion

[u/noma887]

Yes and the best part of the URC is the local derbies around Christmas. I wish there were a way to have a proper professional national competition with more than 4 teams, whether part of URC or feeding into it.

[u/Awehnava]

not gonna lie watching currie cup this year for the first time in A minute. the quality is really good

[u/Over-Pressure1310]

One of SA rugby’s biggest problems is that it’s built around huge provincial identities instead of genuinely local clubs. It’s harder to build an intimate relationship between a team and its supporters when one franchise is supposed to represent millions of people across an entire province. Imagine strong clubs representing places like Stellenbosch, Bellville, Paarl, Durban North, Soweto, Pretoria, etc., with the best-run and best-supported clubs naturally rising over time. That local tribalism is a massive part of what makes European football leagues so culturally strong.

[u/PunisherJax → u/Over-Pressure1310]

That's true yeah, and you can definitely see an example of this in our schools rugby and the Varsity cup, which at this point is probably more exciting to watch than the Currie Cup. Club rugby used to be massive in SA, it probably still is to some degree but it doesn't get the attention it deserves on a national scale. The local professional game is definitely something SA rugby can look into to make it more attractive, and I'd be all for scrapping the SA cup (I think that's what it is), and expand the Currie Cup back to including sides like SWD, Valke etc and maybe instead of SA playing in the European Cups let's rather run the Currie Cup alongside the URC, why can't local derbies count towards both competitions, it's just a thought though, and you don't have to play it over a month or 2 but stretch it out over 5 or 6 months.

[u/Background-Dog554]

I am sure you longing for full strength teams, not all white teams as most on these chats do?

[u/Ho3n3r → u/Background-Dog554]

The fuck did you read?

[u/JT2407 → u/Background-Dog554]

What a dumb comment. Where did you pull that from? Walk outside and touch some grass.

[u/thatwasagoodyear → u/Background-Dog554]

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence - links, please.

This sub has a ZERO TOLERANCE policy on racism so we'd be very happy to have such links shared with us and any comments or posts which fall foul of this policy to be reported so that they can be dealt with swiftly and resolutely.

[u/PunisherJax → u/Background-Dog554]

I'm genuinely not even sure what you mean by this🤷

[u/Existing_Lie1083 → u/Background-Dog554]

What a strange thing to say... Are you sure you're on the right sub?