adminCAPE TOWN. — New South Africa rugby coach Allister Coetzee included 12 black players on Saturday in a 31-man squad that includes nine uncapped players for a three-Test home series against Ireland during June. Sports minister Fikile Mbalula last month barred South African Rugby (SAR) from bidding for or hosting international tournaments because of discontent with racial transformation in the sport. Mbalula had told the national body that 50 percent of the Springboks squad that goes to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan must be black.
South African rugby has traditionally been dominated by whites, who compose only nine percent of the population. Blacks were barred from representing their country during the apartheid era.
Heyneke Meyer, whose four-year contract as national coach was not renewed last December, stubbornly refused to give most black rugby stars in the republic a chance. — AFP.
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