Border boys miss rugby bus

Fingers point to Saru as U17s sit out Sevens event due to transport issues

A disappointed Border schools’ rugby side are watching the South African Rugby U17 inter-provincial Sevens tournament from the sidelines this week.
The team could not travel to the North West province to participate in the tournament due to a lack of transport money.
The Border schools’s U17 Sevens team was meant to leave East London on Thursday morning for their trip to Potchefstroom as one of 15 teams participating in the tournament, that kicked off on Friday morning.
Border called off their participation at the 11th hour after they could not transport the 12 selected players and three technical team members to the tournament.
Some parents who had already paid R700 for their children to join the tour, were called a few hours later to fetch them at East London’s Port Rex Technical High School where they had been dropped off earlier.
This was confirmed on Friday by Mongezi Mncono, secretary of Border Schools Rugby. “They were very disappointed that we will miss the tournament for the first time in our history, ” he said.
Mncono blamed the South African Rugby Union (Saru) for the debacle because they had failed to deposit their subsidy for the trip, on time.
Border was scheduled on Friday morning to play their first game of the tournament against Boland, then Griffons in the afternoon, and Valke later in the day.
Mncono said the team needed R18,000 for transport, “needs on the road” and other sports items.
“Saru was to subsidise us with R14,000, while we also asked each parent to contribute R700 for the trip,” said Mncono.
“However Saru informed us that they could only be able to deposit the money on Friday afternoon, hours after our first and second games were scheduled to start.
“We informed the guy who was to transport us that money would be deposited at 2pm on Friday, but he refused to drive us to North West without his money being paid first.”
“As administration we are so disappointed, but our biggest worry is the children who had already physically and mentally prepared themselves for such games,” Mncono added.
Saru spokesman De Jongh Borchardt said: “SA Rugby pay the travel subsidies over to the SA Schools Rugby Association, who then distribute the funds to the various provincial schools associations.”..

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