J.J. Harmse

Pretoria – The South African Rugby Union (SARU) is keen to host the 2013 Sevens World Cup following its recent bidding failures for the 15-man Rugby World Cup tournaments of 2015 and 2019.

SARU’s presidents council decided during its meeting in Johannesburg on Wednesday that a bid should be made for the Sevens World Cup, in which 24 men’s and 16 women’s teams compete for the Melrose Cup.

The mixed tournament was hosted in Dubai for the first time this year.

There was major unhappiness in local rugby circles when the IRB decided recently to award the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cup tournaments to England and Japan respectively.

The IRB had asked SA Rugby to bid for the two tournaments. South Africa now have their sights on the sevens tournament. The Springboks are the IRB’s current sevens champions.

Meanwhile, SARU had by Wednesday still not heard the outcome of its IRB disciplinary hearing following the Springboks’ decision to wear white armbands in the third Test against the British and Irish Lions.

This was in solidarity with lock Bakkies Botha after he failed with an appeal against a two-week ban for foul play.

SARU had expected an outcome by Wednesday.

The only correspondence SARU’s Presidents Council received from the IRB on Wednesday was a regulation about the permitted number of substitutes.

The IRB wants to rid the game of uncontested scrums and is supporting a proposal for the number of substitutes to be increased to eight so that there will be at least two props and a hooker on every bench.

However, South Africa will only discuss the matter later this year.

Several other rugby matters were also discussed on Wednesday.

• A transformation workshop will be held shortly to investigate why more black players are not making it through to the highest level.

•  The Southern Kings must also submit their business plan for a planned 15th Super rugby franchise by 25 September.