A really fascinating day at the Beyond Sport Summit – highlighted by an entertaining panel discussion including Michael Johnson and Oscar Pistorius, and chaired by Bob Skinstad – was interrupted slightly upon getting three bits of truly bizarre sporting news …

Front Row Grunt

Disturbing rumours hit Cape Town during the afternoon tea break suggesting that instead of centralised contracts, something I have been advocating for a while now, SARU will in fact be offering NO contracts at all next year!

Instead, it is alleged that SARU will instead pay the unions who have Boks on their books and not the players. But will this money reach the Boks or be used to bolster player depth by recruiting more youngsters?

Many Boks have contracts with the Super Rugby unions based on them getting a Bok contract. So these could become null & void!

It would be a bit like going back to the Rudolf Streauli era … Where players did not get contracts but only match fees for games played.

Now some might think this to be a good thing as it would encourage “Playing for the jersey” again, but in a pro era, this is just not acceptable. For example – Without contracts, the Boks cannot take insurance on lost income as no insurance firm will insure against match fees.

And with players already having pretty urgent chats with their agents, player drain is the only eventuality … I just do not see the logic in the decision …

Adding to the intrigue is the suggestion that SARU are set to fly in the face of the above by offering Frans Steyn a sizeable centralised SARU contract, thus enabling him to then choose which union he wants to play for because money will be less of an issue …

Watch this space …

Lions bankrupt …

Then just as I was easing into Club Duvet after a fantastic Beyond Sport Summit drinks and networking evening in Camps Bay, I get the following message: “All Lions Players told only money for salaries until end December. All looking for jobs” …

Knowing it to be information from a reliable source, I Tweet the message … And all hell breaks loose … With the more forward thinking Stormers fans suggesting that those in charge of the cheque books in the shade of table mountain, get moving and snap up a few of those wonderfully exciting young Lions players!

Given that the Lions have been in financial poo for a while, I can well believe this news. After all, Robert Gumede and his partner, Ivor Ichikowitz, the investors negotiating a 49.9 percent stake in the Golden Lions Rugby Union, did not pull out of the deal without reason … Ichikowitz’s parting comment was: “It is simply that the Lions is not being run like a company; it is being run like an amateur union.”

That John Mitchell and his team performed despite this is the amazing, yet slightly sad, side to this story …

(We point out that this is not the viewpoint of Rugby-Talk, merely reporting on what was said on another rugby news forum)

Stormers sign rugby league player …

Having lost all of Jacque Fourie, Tim Whitehead and Johann Sadie, the Stormers have gone out on a bit of a limb and signed a young dual coder called JP du Plessis.

Born in the Free State, Du Plessis to the Cape to attend Paul Roos Gymnasium, where he switched to outside centre in order to get more involved with play and because he lacked the speed to play wing. He went on to make the WP Craven Week and SA Schools teams.

He then made the big call of signing with the Sydney Roosters as a rugby league player with fellow Saffer Brian Skosana in 2009. Having been earmarked by some as a future Bok, a lot of people were very surprised by the move to another country to play a sport not even played in South Africa.

In June 2010, though, Du Plessis signed with the Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby team, but failed to deliver. Now he finds himself back in the city of his schooling, training with the Stormers … A strange tale indeed …