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CAPE TOWN - A row over selection for the national training squad has overshadowed what should be South Africa rugby's biggest week of celebration since the Springboks won the World Cup on home soil in 1995.
Two South African sides -- Durban's Sharks and the Bulls from Pretoria -- contest the first all-South African Super 14 final on Sunday (NZT) before a 54,000-strong sellout crowd in Durban.
But the final has barely merited a mention since a media frenzy erupted after South African Rugby Union (Saru) president Regan Hoskins announced a 46-man training squad shortly after the semifinals.
Without the knowledge of Springboks coach Jake White, Hoskins included 23-year-old Stormers openside flank Luke Watson -- the son of anti-apartheid hero Dan 'Cheeky' Watson, who turned his back on white rugby to play in the black townships at the height of isolation.
White and his fellow selectors had refused to pick Watson, with the coach maintaining over the years that the 1.86m player was too small and that there were better players such as 2004 International Rugby Board player-of-the-year Schalk Burger.
"We think that the player Luke Watson is good enough to be in the training squad," Hoskins told a Johannesburg radio station.
"We believe that the coach and the two national selectors are wrong. We believe that it's time that the player was given an opportunity to be in the training squad."
Watson's play and his father's struggle credentials have made him a political cause celebre.
Parliament's watchdog sports committee accused rugby in February of deliberately excluding Watson on political grounds.
Ebrahim Rasool, the African National Congress (ANC) premier of the Western Cape provincial government -- in whose region Watson plays rugby -- weighed in when he told the Cape Argus newspaper that the player's family background meant he should be treated as a disadvantaged player.
"Jake White shouldn't be looking at Watson as a white player," he said.
"If there are white flanks of equal ability then Luke should get the nod because of his family's history."
White has been silent on the issue. He did not attend a press conference in Bloemfontein today as the Springbok squad -- minus 28 players from the Bulls and Sharks -- assembled to begin preparations for the two-test series against England which begins on May 26.
- REUTERS
