The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Deputy Executive Mayor, Cllr Tshonono Buyeye has encouraged the Eastern Province Elephants to play with courage in their pre-season preperation series fixture against Blue Bulls on Sunday, 28 February 2021, at Loftus Versveld Stadium.
Buyeye was delivering his keynote address during the unveiling of the new EP Elephants jersey and the announcement of the squad by the head coach at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on 24 February. He was joined by Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Portfolio Head, Cllr Helga van Staaden.
The Deputy Executive Mayor urged the rugby stars to represent the residents of the City well knowing that the City is fully behind the team.
“Let’s clean the image of rugby so that we can be in a position where we will be able to attract corporates to invest in rugby. People will not want to invest in a brand that is damaged, hence we say let’s clean the sport of rugby so that investment comes and we do not burden the City and South African Rugby Union (SARU) and rugby can stand on its own.”
“Our other message to the team is that we want to make sure that they are not just a team but they are part of the community. We want to see development programmes. We want to see them revitalizing rugby at schools and our people feeling like they are a part of this team.”
Buyeye said more women needed to be involved in rugby.
“When we say women in rugby we are not only talking about the players but we also want to see women being part of the administration because we have capable women in the City who have played rugby and have an understanding,” he said.
EP Elephants Head Coach, Peter de Villiers announced the fly half, Innocent Radebe as the new captain of the team.
Eastern Pronvince Rugby Union President Andre Rademan said the team would always be grateful for the financial support and the valuable partnership with the Municipality.
“The financial injection by the Municipality to our team shows the confidence the Municipality has in our team. If you look where we come from there was nothing going right for the administration. The first four years were for rebuilding this union to get all the negativities out to get us on the front foot”, Redeman said.
