Southern Kings a step closer to Super Rugby

The formation of the Southern Kings Super Rugby team took another step with the appointment of subcommitee and an agreement to play the other five South African Super Rugby teams.

The Southern Kings have been formed to service the Southern and Eastern Cape rugby regions in South Africa.

The Executive Council of SARU met in Newlands today and appointed a subcommittee, consisting of the newly appointed SARU CEO Jurie Roux, SARU Deputy President Mark Alexander and Southern Kings CEO Stefan Pretorius to finalise the Memorandum of Understanding between the three SEC unions and SARU and the SEC franchise business plan.

The subcommittee was instructed to finalise the draft business plan within one month and to present it to SARU at the next Executive Council meeting.

The presidents of Eastern Province, Border and SWD met with the Executive Council and during these deliberations SARU again reaffirmed its commitment to establish a franchise in the strategically important SEC region.

SARU President Regan Hoskins praised the positive manner in which these discussions took place.

“Our next step is to draft a comprehensive business plan so that we can move forward. The establishment of a franchise in the SEC is a top priority for us and I am delighted we are now starting to put concrete steps in place to make this a reality,” explained Mr Hoskins.

The Executive Council also approved a Southern Kings proposal to play friendly matches against the five South African franchises in 2011.

The SARU Exco also discussed the issue of transformation at length. SARU is not happy with the current pace of transformation and the issue was referred to its Transformation Committee for further deliberations.

“The Executive Council agreed unanimously that we must tackle the issue of transformation aggressively and in a more urgent manner.

“We discussed several options in this regard, but in order for us take decisive steps, we decided to refer it to our Transformation Committee for further deliberations,” said Mr Hoskins.