SARU wins Gsport Sports Federation of the Year award
The South African Rugby Union on Friday was named the Sports Federation of the Year at the 10thedition of the Gsport Awards for its commitment to growing women’s rugby in South Africa and changing the face of the game by contracting players for the first time in the history of South African rugby.
Gsport is online initiative launched in 2006 to raise the profile of South African women in sport.
The award was added to the Gsport awards stable to laud federations making strides in raising the profile of women’s sport in South Africa and who have taken up the challenge to turn women’s sport professional.
“We are delighted to receive this award,” said SARU CEO Jurie Roux. “We have shown in the last two years that we are serious about women’s rugby by contracting players for the first time and by launching various other initiatives to grow and develop the sport. The face of women’s rugby in South Africa has changed significantly and we hope this will pay off in the international arena in the next few years.
“We have already seen the results of contracting players, as the team qualified for the Women’s World Series as a core team for the first time last season, and hopefully we can retain our place on the circuit next season at the Qualifier in Dublin next week.”
SARU was one of the first rugby federations in the world to award contracts to 15 Elite Springbok Women’s players in January 2014 and continues to contract the core group of players who participated on the World Rugby Women’s World Series this season.
The squad is based with the Springbok Sevens men’s team at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport, where the teams share the training facilities. The Springbok Sevens side also occasionally offers fresh insights at their training sessions.
Earlier this year SARU also launched a new programme to boost women’s rugby in South Africa and increase participation through the development of Youth Training Centres for Under-16 and Under-18 players at selected provincial unions.
Nine coaches and administrators – including former Springbok Women stars Mandisa Williams and Yolanda Meiring – have been appointed to run the centres, which are hosted at the Limpopo Blue Bulls, the Blue Bulls, Border, Eastern Province, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Province rugby unions.
In addition to that SARU added a 15-a-sdie Girls Under-18 National Girls Week to its growing list of women’s competitions and invited the Zimbabwean Women’s team to participate. The Zimbabwean Women’s team will also participate in the SARU Women’s Interprovincial Sevens competition later this year.
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