Another black Bok snubbed in Super 12 rugby

Another black Springbok has been snubbed by a South African Super 12 team.

The latest victim is Bulls flanker Tim Dlulane, who was left out of the team's touring squad to Australia and New Zealand.

This follows the Stormers' snub to Bok wing Jonghi Nokwe, who did not even make the team's 29-strong squad for the Super 12.

Both players were Springboks on last November's tour to Europe and Argentina, although coach Jake White did not play Nokwe at any stage.

Dlulane got seven minutes as a replacement for Schalk Burger in the test against Wales and did not play again on tour.

The point, however, is that both men were considered good enough to be Springboks but are now not considered good enough for the Super 12.

This week the Bulls are in Canberra for a match against the Brumbies on Friday.

In spite of early fitness doubts about Bulls loose forwards Anton Leonard and Jacques Cronjé, Dlulane was only partly in the frame as a possible replacement.

Johan Wasserman and Ruan Vermeulen were mentioned as contenders with Dlulane.

One Pretoria rugby scribe, who is close to the Bulls, even suggested that the two white players were better options.

As it turned out, Leonard and Cronjé were both declared fit on Wednesday and included in the team. Cronjé limped out of training on Tuesday, but the injury was apparently not serious.

The rugby press has again been noticeably quiet on the issue with only the rugby website http://www.keo.co.za/ reporting Dlulane's snub in any detail.

The managing director of the South African Rugby Union, Johan Prinsloo, told the website that "the lack of black representation (in the Super 12) is a massive concern for us. We have shown good faith in the regions, but the black numbers don't vindicate this good faith".

At the weekend only 12 black players featured in South Africa's four Super 12 teams.

The absence of Nokwe from the Stormers squad has been fobbed off with several excuses, one of them being that the player was needed for the Springbok sevens team.

At the weekend Nokwe was described by one rugby reporter as "not the finished product".

Stormers coach Gert Smal has reportedly made Nokwe "his personal responsibility". The player, who hails from Khayelitsha, has been housed at a Newlands hotel to "minimise transport problems".

Nokwe is reportedly also on a special diet and he is working in the gym close to his hotel.

The rarity of black players in the Super 12 is expected to be one of the burning issues over the next few weeks as South African rugby debates where to site the five teams in the Super 14, which starts in 2006.

It's really a battle for the fifth team. This will be between the central unions, led by Free State, and the coastal regions of the Eastern Cape and South Western Districts.

The minister of sport, Makhenkesi Stofile, supports the coastal group because of the high concentration in the area of black players.

He also criticised SA rugby for picking a handful of black players in the opening round of the Super 12.