SA Rugby calls for sport bodies to run sport in schools

SA Rugby President, Mark Alexander, has once again highlighted the importance children participating in sport at school, calling for SA Rugby to run rugby programmes in schools.

Alexander believes that there are numerous talented kids who fall through the cracks due to a lack of development and proper coaching and says this is one of the conversations he will look to have with the new Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton Mackenzie.

“This is a conversation that we’ve been having for quite a while. Until we sort out that sport should control schoolboy rugby. There are so many kids in the Eastern Cape that don’t have access to nutrition, that go to school without a decent meal. There are so many other Siya Kolisis, if we can make a different in those lives.”

Alexander also says that if the foundations are laid at school, it makes it easier for the union when the players have matured.

“We need to fight the schools’ thing; kids must play sport. Any kind of sport, it doesn’t have to be rugby because that makes our job easier.”

Alexander was speaking on the eve of the Springboks first Test match on home soil since they became back-to-back Rugby World Cup champions.

The Boks take on Ireland at a sold-out Loftus Versveld Stadium in Pretoria tomorrow.