Walk into a bar with Brent Russell, De Wet Barry, Neil de Kock, Justin Melck, Brad Barrett and Robbie Diack, and you?d assume you?re in South Africa, and in all likelihood Cape Town. Rugby?s a global platform today, though, and so Saturday night?s quiet beer wasn?t at a Keg or a Dros, but the Walkabout in Covent Garden. Welcome to London, South Africa?s largest city?

Two nights earlier, I?d been in Johannesburg, hosting the South African Legends President?s dinner, a celebration of another fine year for John Allen?s collective of hard-drinking ex-players, who combine a love of rugby with a philanthropic streak that?s doing splendid work for developing the game across the country. John Smit headlined a rugby crowd of everyone from Breyton Paulse and Braam van Straaten to Rob Louw and Joel Stransky, all in support of the Legacy project that?s putting down artificial turf playing surfaces across the country, to provide a platform for a new generation of South African stars to emerge.

It wasn?t just rugby players, though, for the Legends project is expanding to soccer and cricket, and so Mark Williams, Doctor Khumalo, Roger de Sa and Mark Bachelor joined Graeme Smith, Shane Warne, Mike Proctor and David Terbrugge in celebrating the expansion of the Legend project; the first surface, under the patronage of Lucas Radebe, has already been unveiled, and with the JAG Foundation also behind the initiative, young South Africans previously denied facilities to explore their particular sporting talent, suddenly have a chance to get stuck into the codes so many of us took for granted growing up.

But while the dinner was awash with players happily settled into retirement, the interim generation was thousands of miles away. Soccer falls into its own category, the economics of the game dictating a unique dynamic, but for both rugby and cricket, a legion of top South Africans is hard at work overseas, and the results are beginning to show.

New Zealand and Australia are struggling in the Super 14 ? whatever the log positions, the depth of talent in both countries simply doesn?t allow for the sheer volume of player loss they?ve had to endure. South Africa hasn?t been immune, thanks to the vast pool of players we have, but what hasn?t been appreciated is the experience we?ve lost; experience that raw talent alone simply isn?t enough to replace.

The Stormers make for an ideal example. At the start of this season, Saracens had a squad on average six years older than the Cape side, for whom (with the exception of AJ Venter) Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger are the senior players. Contrast that with Jake White?s winning squad, where the guiding hand of players like Smit, Montgomery, Skinstad and Matfield were crucial in complementing players like Steyn and Pienaar, and you have the case for hanging on to older players longer than has become fashionable in South Africa.

Cue dismal seasons in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Blomefontein, where experience simply isn?t in place; no amount of explosive 20-year-olds weighing 120-kilograms and running the 100 metres in eight seconds, will entirely offset the guile and nous accumulated over a dozen seasons of professional rugby.

And if it?s an issue in rugby, it?s even more so in cricket, where the Kolpac system and the counties? thirst for success has made Afrikaans the mother tongue of the country championship. We?re still producing outstanding young cricketers, but if they?re not getting international attention the moment they?re out of school, then a large sterling cheque and a sponsored car has them off to join the English gravy train.

The cricket question is a tough one to answer: the money in domestic cricket in South Africa is modest, and where the nature of rugby means that injuries are frequent and opportunity therefore more regular, the national cricket squad is a closed shop most of the time. But with franchise cricket already a weakened entity, further strain is inevitable, if the senior hands and role models are all off earning pounds, the guiding hands so crucial in a young player?s development simply won?t be there to take advantage of initiatives like the Legacy project.

And the same is true of rugby, where a generation of players in their late 20s and early 30s is spread out across Europe, earning healthy money and securing futures. You can?t blame the players, who have political uncertainty at home, and the lure of financial security abroad, but you can take to task the South African system, which simply hasn?t done enough to maintain a backbone of experienced players across the Super rugby spectrum, a backbone vital in ensuring that young stars have the support needed to make the most of their talent.

Just as the international players are giving India?s up-and-comers invaluable support in the IPL, so the likes of Barry, De Kock, Russell and co. are nurturing their own team-mates at their European teams, when ideally that counsel should be directed at South Africans. They?d all love to be back in South Africa, but professional sport has little time for sentiment, and Europe is hard to resist. But as John Allen and his rugby, cricket and soccer partners steam ahead in giving the next wave of South African children a chance to change lives through sport, so that generation of experienced players in the twilight of careers needs more of a role. We have the talent, and in wondrous abundance; it?s getting the best out of that talent that will ensure we stay on top of the sporting pile.

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za