Rugby: For The People Not the Few

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: June 3, 2010

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In the last two weeks all of South Africa bore witness to two remarkable rugby events — that far from being incidental, as a consequence of the Soccer World Cup change in venue requirements — had a Super 14 rugby semifinal and final being played at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.

These two events, each with 40,000 rugby ambassadors, mainly from Pretoria of course, resonated across and throughout South Africa in such a fashion it highlighted what it is to be a South African, with other South Africans celebrating our pure unbridled passion for our sport.

These two events overcame pre-conceived notions and wound up being a double national celebration of who we are and what we are capable of as a multicultural nation that is capable of a huge outpouring of emotion.

One resident of Soweto who attended the games said it best with his statement that, “the World Cup in South Africa is a celebration for the world, but the Super 14 semifinal and final was a celebration for South Africa.”

Even my Blue Bulls Fundamentalist father-in-law’s friends did it the right South African way, for a gang of five very senior 75+ year old rugby loving Blue Bulls supporters, by hiring a local minibus taxi in Pretoria, to take them to the game and visit three shebeens before the game and another three shebeens after the game.

To me that is a remarkable revelation of how our game rugby turned into a celebration of a national rugby fellowship.

What makes this a remarkable celebration was that it was in the public eye and the focus of all these positive emotions were brought about by the absolutely phenomenal professional planning and camera work of SuperSport.

The CEO of SuperSport, Imtiaz Patel and his colleagues can take a bow for producing a spectacular visual odyssey of what our South African sporting and rugby life was like in Orlando Soweto over those two Saturdays.

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Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union

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