The rugby on display is terrific but there is more to it than just that.

I played some first team rugby in my time as a pupil at Benoni High School, when rugby was first started under principal Jake Ceronio in 2005.

Looking back I am pleased with the progress and with how the sport has grown at the school (with a player in the Valke Craven Week team) and also at how many excellent young rugby players are emerging from Benoni’s rugby-playing schools in general.

Sure, not all of the players selected to go to Craven Week will sign big contracts at various unions or go on to don the Sprinbok green and gold but the experience of playing at an event of such stature is always beneficial to young sportsmen who will reflect on their playing days for years to come and perhaps use this experience to enter the industry of the game as coaches, scouts or selectors.

Craven Week is the biggest schoolboy rugby development week in the world and again highlights how important identifying talent at grassroots level is.

Our rugby has always been strong in South Africa because the bottom-level structures that are in place allow for a larger pool of players to be tagged by scouts and coaches from as young as 10 years old.

This is something that our soccer is missing.

A 25-year-old football player who is called up to the Bafana Bafana squad is considered as a youngster who is still gaining experience while in countries like Germany a 24-year-old, Thomas Müller is already on the fast track to reaching Ronaldo’s (the former Brazilian striker) all time World Cup goal haul of 15 goals in total.

Some government schools are not even embracing the game anymore and it is left to local clubs and football associations to discover raw gems.

The Danone Nations Cup tournament (a development tournament for players between 10 and 12 years old) is a good starting point for football development of school pupils and is an excellent initiative to get primary school children from both suburban and rural schools playing together with the bigger aim of qualifying for an international tournament.

This creates competition and competition is the cornerstone of any sport and indeed any strong nation and economy.

The more children who want to compete in a sport the better.

The next Lionel Messi could be the little boy playing football in your street with the weathered old soccer ball.

It is crucial to get that little boy on a field sooner rather than later with as few limitations as possible.

Perhaps initiatives like The Danone Nations Cup tournament will ensure that more schools embrace the sport.

Not having Bafana Bafana at a World Cup feels like a travesty of justice to me.

We love our soccer and should be a difficult encounter for any top team in the Fifa rankings.

Corruption, mismanagement and a blind-eye on grassroots development is not going to help us get to the next tournament.

In fact, it is just adding more and more water to an already sinking ship.

LG