Boland Cavaliers finally adding sweet dessert to club rugby's bread and butter

Club rugby is more than just a casual pastime in the Boland. In these parts it’s more like a religion, and Saturdays are when supporters fill their spiritual cups.

Club rugby is the heart and soul of many communities, with people playing organised rugby from Wellington in the Winelands to Saldanha on the West Coast; to Grabouw in the Overberg to Van Rhynsdorp close to the Northern Cape border. Boland boast around 220 clubs and about 24,000 registered players, by far the most of any other union in the country.

All of this culminates at the end of the season into the Boland Top 12, which is a fiercely contested competition, with the best of the best competing to be the union’s top team.

Those games, especially the semi-finals and finals at Boland Stadium, are normally packed to the rafters with supporters coming to support their teams from far and wide.

However, the massive support hasn’t always spilled over to the Boland Cavaliers provincial team, who before last Sunday’s Currie Cup opener against the Cheetahs had plaed in an enpty stadium for the longest time.

“The club rugby is big and well-supported, the bread and butter for all of these towns. The clubs are better supported than Boland and we would like to change that and get them behind us in the Currie Cup,” coach Hawies Fourie told Independent Media following their return to the Premier Division of the Currie Cup.

But Fourie’s wish came true on Sunday when the supporters rocked up on a perfect Winelands winter’s day to support the team on their return to the Currie Cup.

Boland capped off a spectacular day’s rugby with a try eight minutes after the hooter had gone to beat Frans Steyn’s Cheetahs. Club rugby rivals in the stands embraced as their provincial side announced their arrival back into top-flight rugby with a bang.

For the union, being in the Currie Cup is just a stepping stone to something great after South Africa’s richest men Johann Rupert and Patrice Motsepe purchased the professional arm in an equality deal. The goal is franchise rugby and competing in competitions such as the United Rugby Championship sooner rather than later.

The Boland region is a gold mine for rugby talent if you look at the amount of players the schools and clubs produce. But many of those players are normally snapped up by other unions who can offer money and a path to the Springboks by playing in the big competitions.

But Boland’s ambitions to grow and put high-performance plans in place to keep the cream of the crop at home - with the help of Rupert and Motsepe’s money - could see them become a proper rugby superpower.

Such a pipeline from club rugby to the very top will help players who normally fall through the cracks that chance to reach their dreams and inspire those around them in their communities. It’s something that Fourie is very passionate about.

“The purpose of this team (Boland) is to inspire our community. It is really important for us to show the people in the Boland that we can compete at a high level and inspire the young kids to play rugby and make a living from it,” Fourie said after the Cheetahs win.

“We need to give back to the community, and the way that we played and the character that we showed in the last six to seven minutes of the game will inspire a lot of people.

“We would just like to thank everyone who took the time on a Sunday afternoon to come and support us here in Wellington, we appreciate it.”

Club rugby remains the bread and butter of the Boland region, but supporters can now look forward to the Cavaliers as the sweet dessert that brings the whole rugby meal together.