Western Province Rugby
| Western Province Rugby | ||
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| Basic data | ||
|---|---|---|
| Surname | Western Province Rugby Football Union (main association) WP Rugby (Pty) Ltd (professional rugby team) |
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| Seat | Cape Town , Western Cape | |
| founding | May 30, 1883 | |
| president | Thelo Wakefield | |
| Board | Theuns Roodman (main association) Rob Wagner (professional rugby operations) |
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| Website | http://www.wprugby.com/ | |
| First soccer team | ||
| Head coach | John Dobson | |
| Venue | Newlands Stadium | |
| Places | 51,900 | |
| league | Currie Cup | |
| 2012 | master | |
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Western Province Rugby (also: WP Rugby ; officially: Western Province Rugby Football Union ; Afrikaans : Westelike Provinsie Rugbyunie ) is the rugby union umbrella organization of around 90 amateur rugby clubs with 12,000 members in the Cape Town conurbation . It was founded on May 30, 1883 and is a member of the South African Rugby Union (SARU).
The professional division of the provincial association's selection team, which has been outsourced to its own stock corporation since 1996, is the South African record champions . For sponsorship reasons, it is officially called DHL Western Province . Their nicknames are WP (pronounced Wipi), Province and Die Streeptruie ( Eng .: the striped shirts).
The club has also formed a professional franchise called Stormers , which specializes in international super rugby, since 1998, together with the two other rugby provincial associations in the Western Cape and their respective national teams, Boland Rugby Union (Boland Cavaliers) and South Western Districts Rugby Football Union (SWD Eagles) Championship is playing.
history
1861 to 1889 - founding years
1861 brought English clergyman George Ogilvie the Football in the form of Winchester College Football in the then Cape Colony , where he worked as director of the Diocesan College in Rondebosch, near Cape Town. Rugby football began to be played in Cape Colony around 1875 . At the same time, the first football clubs were formed in the region, but they often still played Winchester Football. Rugby did not finally prevail over this until 1878, when all previously founded clubs switched to rugby, after the former English rugby national player William Henry Milton emigrated to Cape Town in the same year and campaigned for rugby at his new club Villagers .
On May 30, 1883, the rugby clubs that had existed in and around Cape Town then founded the umbrella organization Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) . This makes it the oldest rugby association in South Africa. In the founding year she organized her first club championship. The WPRFU decided in 1888 to purchase a piece of land in Cape Town's Newlands district, which it gradually expanded into Newlands Stadium and headquarters in the following years . In 1889, the province joined the newly established, later national rugby association, the South African Rugby Board (SARB), which was only open to white members.
1889 to 1959 - national dominance
Immediately after its establishment, the SARB decided with the Currie Cup for the first time to hold a supraregional championship between the national teams of its affiliated provincial associations, which developed into the official South African rugby championship after the end of the Second Boer War in 1902 and the subsequent establishment of the South African Union in 1910. The Western Province team won the first edition of the Currie Cup in 1889, making it the de facto first South African champions.
On May 31, 1890, the first game took place in the new Newlands venue. In the game, the Stellenbosch RFC defeated the Villagers RFC in front of 2,400 spectators.
Western Province clearly dominated the Currie Cup until the end of the 1950s, which has only been held regularly since 1968. The team won 18 out of a total of 28 events between 1889 and 1959. In addition, there were the two championships that were split in 1932 and 1934 with the Border RU .
1968 to 1978 - difficult times in sport
After 1959, the next Currie Cup did not take place again until 1968, and has been held annually since then. In 1969 Western Province came into the final, but was defeated in this with 13:28 of the Northern Transvaal RU , which replaced Western Province as the dominant province in the 1970s. After that, the team had to wait seven years for another entry into the final before they met the Orange Free State RU in the 1976 final. This time she lost the final 16:33 against the Free State.
1979 to 1989 - golden years
Three years later, Western Province shared the championship with Northern Transvaal as the teams parted in the 1979 final with a 15-15 draw. The following year both teams were in the final again, the Northern Transvaal clearly won 39: 9. A lively rivalry developed between the two provinces in the 1980s as they faced six times in that decade in the Currie Cup final after Western Province regained strength. She managed to win the championship five times in a row from 1982 to 1986. In 1988, the team was defeated by Northern Transvaal just 18:19 in the final and shared the Currie Cup with them a year later, after a final score of 16:16 in the final.
Western Province also provided the second colored player of the South African national team (Springboks) in 1984 with the inner three-quarter Avril Williams .
1990 until today - upheaval and professionalization
The provincial association has been a member of the South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU) since 1992 , which was founded after the end of apartheid . The new national rugby federation emerged from the union of the only white-only South African Rugby Board and the South African Rugby Union, which is open to all races.
Avril Williams' nephew Chester Williams , who also ran for Western Province, became the third colored South African international in the 1990s and a star of the 1995 Rugby Union World Cup in his own country when he won the World Cup with the Springboks.
In the same year, Western Province also moved back into the championship finals for the first time since 1989, in which they were defeated by the Natal RU at 17:25. At the end of 1995, the world rugby association IRB declared the hitherto pure amateur sport of rugby union open, which meant the introduction of professionalism . The end of apartheid and professionalization led to a significant upheaval in South African rugby. South African provincial teams have been taking part in the international Super 10 tournament since 1993, which was expanded to a professional Super 12 in 1996 . Western Province could only qualify for the last Super 10 tournament in 1995, where they finished third in Group A with two wins and two losses.
In 1996, she transformed her selection team into a professional division which she outsourced as a public company called WP Rugby (Pty) Ltd. The team took part in the first season of the Super 12 this year , as they had qualified through the internal rules of SARFU via the Currie Cup 1995. Due to their performance in the penultimate twelfth place, they were replaced as the worst of the four participating South African provincial teams in the next season by Free State. 1997 Western Province was again South African champions when they defeated Free State with 14:12 in the final of the Currie Cup.
For the 1998 Super 12 season, SARFU abandoned its internal participation rules and decided to also use fixed franchises without internal relegation. Then the Western Province RFU founded together with the Boland RU and the South Western Districts RFU the Stormers , who have been playing in super rugby since then. Despite the joint venture, the franchise is clearly dominated by Western Province, which has by far provided the most players and coaches since its inception, as well as the home stadium with Newlands.
In 1998, Western Province was defeated in the Currie Cup final at 20:24 against the Northern Transvaal, renamed Blue Bulls. In 2000 and 2001 they managed to win the South African championship - each with a final victory against Natal, which was renamed Sharks. After these two successes, they did not qualify again for a final in the Currie Cup until 2010, which they lost to the Sharks at 10:30. In 2012 they won the third-rate Vodacom Cup against the GWK Griquas with 20:18, before they were again South African champions in the same year, as they won the final of the Currie Cup against the Sharks with 25:18.
successes
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Currie Cup (33)
- Sole victories (29): 1889, 1892, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1898, 1904, 1906, 1908, 1914, 1920, 1925, 1927, 1929, 1936, 1947, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2012
- Victories shared (4): 1932, 1934, 1979, 1989
- Vodacom Cup (1): 2012
Squad
Current squad
The following players make up the squad for the 2012 Currie Cup:
|
Third row striker |
Team captain- ‡ National players of the South African national team in the international tournament The Rugby Championship 2012 , who are therefore only available afterwards.
Current trainer and supervisor staff
The coaching and support staff for the 2012 season:
| Surname | function |
|---|---|
| Allister Coetzee | Head coach |
| Robbie Fleck | Assistant coach (back team) |
| Matthew Proudfoot | Assistant coach (striker) |
| Chippie Solomon | Team manager |
Well-known former players
Club rugby
Below the professional provincial teams that play in the nationwide Currie Cup, there is the club rugby, which is only operated at the amateur level and mainly regionally or locally. Each South African provincial association holds its own competitions for its affiliated clubs. At the end of the club season, the 16 provincial champions compete against each other in a nationwide tournament. Western Province has a total of nine men's leagues for its 90 member clubs. These are in descending order:
The Super League A (championship), Super League B, Premier League A, Premier League B, Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 and Division 4. There is also a separate league for the clubs in the region around Paarl . There are also other competitions and leagues for women's, school and youth teams.
The current men's club champion in the Western Province is the Durbanville / Bellville RFC.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Western Province reveals new president. sportindustry.co.za, accessed June 27, 2012 .
- ↑ Clubs. (No longer available online.) Vodacom, archived from the original on June 16, 2012 ; accessed on June 27, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Western Province Rugby Referees' Society. sareferees.com, accessed June 27, 2012 .
- ^ A b The History of South African Rugby. rugbyfootballhistory.com, accessed June 27, 2012 .
- ^ Newlands - 1888 to 1989. (No longer available online.) Western Province, archived from the original September 30, 2012 ; accessed on June 27, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ TEAM. South African Rugby Federation website, accessed October 1, 2012 .
- ^ Currie Cup Management Team. (No longer available online.) Western Province, archived from the original on September 30, 2012 ; accessed on June 27, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Team Statistics and Log Standings. Western Province, accessed June 27, 2012 .
