Earlier this week The Common Sense juxtaposed the Bokkieweek school sport week, first against the experience of the annual Paul Roos v Paarl Gim rugby derby and then against the make-up of the Springbok starting forward-pack of the last Saturday’s Test against Scotland. Bokkieweek proponents had long argued that there would be no space for Afrikaners in South African school sports. The Common Sense’s argument was that the position was far more nuanced than that. A concerned reader challenged The Common Sense, saying it ignored the reality of racial quotas in school sport. In this article, The Common Sense sets out what those quotas are in school-level rugby.

SA Rugby, the body that governs the sport in the country, has a Strategic Transformation Development Plan. That sets out the racial and demographic targets from schoolboy level up to the Springboks.

According to the plan, for any interprovincial tournament at least 12 of 23 players selected must be players of colour, meaning African, coloured, or Indian. That is a minimum quota of 52 percent. And that quota would apply to each of the following weeks:

• •the U13 Craven Week;
• •the U16 Grant Khomo Week;
• •the U18 Craven Week; and
• •the U18 Academy Week.

The girls' equivalents, the annual FNB U16 Girls Week and FNB U18 Girls Week, sit under a separate target of 60 percent players of colour rather than the 12-of-23 rule.

These quota targets follow the spirit of the Transformation Charter for South African Sport, a national framework adopted by the state in 2011.  Its final milestone is a playing profile that matches the demographics of the country’s population: 80% black African, 9% coloured, 9% white, and 2% Indian, or about 91% players of colour. The Charter binds 19 sporting federations, each of which is audited on its progress every year. Each sporting federation has set targets for transformation within their respective fields, and if they fail to live up to these, they risk losing government funding.

So where does that leave the assessment that the Paul Roos v Paarl Gim derby and the Springbok Test side this Saturday is a more realistic reflection of the reality facing Afrikaner kids than the narrowly nationalistic laager sense that Bokkieweek would suggest? One answer that may well hold universally across the country is that the policies of the government are discriminatory and racist and yet, despite this, Afrikaners continue to thrive in an increasingly integrated society, almost as if the discrimination they face has driven them even harder to succeed.

This may be the great irony of the race-based empowerment policy framework adopted by the government – that South Africa’s white population has continued to do so very well, whereas, as was the case at Loftus this past Saturday, the actual number of black African players on the field was not much higher than 20 years ago, which might well go to show that excellence is forged under pressure and not through handouts or quotas.