Johannesburg - Former Blitzboks star Paul Delport reckons SA Rugby “don’t give a s**t” about their Women’s Sevens programme he said after he resigned from his position as coach of the Sevens ladies team on Wednesday.
Delport’s comments are interesting as they come at a time when SA Rugby is pouring resources into the Women’s Fifteens game and no stone was left unturned to prepare the team that is currently playing in the World Cup in New Zealand.
But according to Delport, it is a different story with Sevens.
“It is pretty simple for me,” Delport told Daily Maverick. “There were 16 teams at the Women’s Sevens Rugby World Cup. There are 13 teams that are full-time professionals. There are three of us who aren’t — South Africa, Madagascar and Colombia, and we finished 14th, 15th and 16th.
“It’s pretty easy. I don’t need to explain this and the people at SA Rugby won’t listen,” the 37-year-old continued. “I’m not willing to work for people who don’t care about our women’s sevens programme.
“I don’t understand. Women’s rugby is where it is at the moment, where all the growth can happen. And we don’t want to invest, which doesn’t make any sense.”
Delport said he had heard that there is to be a sevens programme for next year but he had not been consulted.
“I have not been privy to that,” Delport said. “I’ve been asking for the same thing for five years and I got nothing that I’ve asked for.”
🗣️ Springbok Women's Sevens coach Paul Delport discusses his team's performance at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. @TeamSA2024 pic.twitter.com/GRTYnBGMp1
— Springbok Women (@WomenBoks) August 1, 2022
Delport said he had been forced to lie to his players about SA Rugby investing in women’s rugby.
“(SA Rugby) don’t give a s**t. I’m resigning because I can no longer peddle a lie to talented young women.
“I’ve got these women asking me, ‘Paulie, what should I do? Should I sign here or should I go overseas?’
“I don’t think it’s fair for a national coach to be telling players they shouldn’t sign here because there’s nothing going on. Unfortunately, that’s the truth.
“We don’t have enough athletic women playing sevens and there’s an unwillingness to invest. If we want to do it properly we need to go and find proper athletes, but we also need to make it worthwhile for these talented young women. We can’t ask them to do things for free.
“We’re just falling further and further behind the rest of the world.”
SA Rugby, though, sings a different tune and High-Performance Manager Lynne Cantwell said it is important for the momentum picked up by the Springbok Women's Sevens to be sustained, adding that an announcement on Delport’s successor will be made in due course.
“I want to thank Paul personally — he is an excellent coach and was fully committed to progress in the women’s game at a time that had multiple challenges.
“His willingness to hand over to the new incoming head coach will help keep the momentum going in the sevens programme, as we can’t afford to lose learnings from Paul’s experience.”
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