Saturday\u2019s Investec Champions Cup match between the Stormers and Stade Rochelais at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium highlighted one of the biggest anomalies in SA Rugby.<\/p>\n
The 17,058 fans who paid to watch the clash demonstrated that Bay fans always come out in big numbers to admire the skills of top-class Test stars like Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Cobus Reinach.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the EP Elephants have been unable to claw their way out of the lower leagues in recent years and have become trapped in the second-tier Currie Cup First Division.<\/p>\n
Stormers coach John Dobson, speaking after the match in Gqeberha, said EP\u2019s plight was a tragedy and not good for the well-being of SA rugby.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that EP, because of its talent base and top rugby-playing schools, should be a hotbed for the game.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons for EP\u2019s struggle for success has been a lack of cash to buy top-class professional players that would enable the Elephants to win promotion to the Currie Cup Premier Division.<\/p>\n
First Division matches lack crowd appeal, and only a few hundred die-hard supporters turn up when EP play at the NMB Stadium or Madibaz Stadium.<\/p>\n
EP have been forced to operate on a semi-professional basis, and this has left them at a severe disadvantage when they play teams like the Cheetahs, Pumas and Griquas in the SA Cup.<\/p>\n
All top-flight games staged in Gqeberha during 2025 were well supported, which underlined the Eastern Cape\u2019s love for the game.<\/p>\n
Topping the list in 2025 was a visit by the Springboks, who maintained their unbeaten record at the stadium when they thrashed Italy 45-0 in front of a sellout crowd of 46,000.<\/p>\n
New ground was broken when the Junior Springboks played three matches at the stadium in the U21 Rugby Championship during May.<\/p>\n
A vibrant crowd of 15,000 fans turned up to watch their final match against the All Blacks in a magnificent show of support for age-group rugby.<\/p>\n
Dobson hit the nail on the head when he said Gqeberha\u2019s passionate supporters deserve much better.<\/p>\n
The Herald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday\u2019s Investec Champions Cup match between the Stormers and Stade Rochelais at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium highlighted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,194005,194003,194004,194002,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-353442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-currie-cup-first-division","11":"tag-eastern-cape-rugby","12":"tag-john-dobson-rugby","13":"tag-junior-springboks-matches","14":"tag-rugby","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}