Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus said they are trying to keep the younger players in South Africa and that players must first stake their claim in South Africa before moving abroad.
"We sign players from various local franchises coming from their junior structures."
"We are trying to keep the younger ones in South Africa. We believe when a young player moves abroad, it’s difficult to select a player. There are very few that we do select that works."
"We believe a player should stake his claim locally before going abroad. It’s difficult to rank young players playing in various overseas leagues if we don’t know them."
SA Rugby CEO Riaan Oberholzer explained the PONI (Player of National Interest) contracting model.
"We don’t contract the players, it’s up to the franchises to bring the player back to South Africa within a salary cap that they agreed to."
"They can contract incoming payers within a salary band and agree on their salaries."
"The contribution from SA Rugby’s side is to the players’ salary and not to the payer directly, but to the franchise. That helps the franchise to contract the player. SA Rugby doesn’t contract players directly."
Rassie Erasmus also added: "In the early 2010s, there were only 12 or 13 contracted Springbok players."
"We then moved to a model of a tri-party agreement, and now we are on a Player Of National Interest (PONI) system."
"The PONI system has a budget we work with and meet with the various franchises. That budget must be used for players who will probably play for the Boks in future."
"We currently contribute to 50 and 60 players from junior level up."
"That’s much better than the old days where we had 14 signed players, and only four of them played 50% of all the matches they could’ve played."