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Many South African rugby fans spent yesterday watching SuperSport’s excellent ‘Rugby World Cup Relived’ special.

Featuring great insight from the players, management staff, and pundits, it was yet another chance to enjoy our world champion status, and yet another chance to watch Owen Farrell being left for dead.

I will never, ever, tire of watching Cheslin Kolbe’s magic feet in action.

Some consolation for Farrell, and many of his English teammates, is that they do feature on the list of the best-paid rugby players in the world.

That list, compiled by Wales Online, does not include the likes of Dan Carter and Matt Giteau, who play in Japan where the season has been cancelled.

Sitting pretty right on top of that list is our own Handrè Pollard, who is reported to be on a £1 million per year package at French club Montpellier.

He shares pole position with All Black centre Charles Piutau, who will earn the same playing for the Bristol Bears.

Take a moment to consider that Lionel Messi made a base salary in excess of £500 000 per week last season, and the gulf in earnings between the two sports becomes clear.

Another Springbok, the budgie smuggler-wearing Faf de Klerk also features, down in 15th spot, raking in a reported £500 000 a year.

Here are the rest of the names sandwiched in between our Bok heroes:

• MARO ITOJE £875 000
• OWEN FARRELL £750 000
• STEVEN LUATUA £650 000
• DAN BIGGAR £600 000
• NICOLAS SANCHEZ £580 000 and MORGAN PARRA £580 000
• MICHAEL HOOPER £572 000
• STUART HOGG £550 000 and MANU TUILAGI £550 000
•  JOHNNY SEXTON £536 000
• FINN RUSSELL £535 000
• BEAUDEN BARRETT £520 00

Along with Pollard and Piutau, and Faf de Klerk, that makes up the top 15.

Those earnings are based on club salaries only, and exclude any national earnings through contracts and appearance fees.

I would love to know what Rassie Erasmus’ salary is as Director of Rugby at SA Rugby.

Should we take a little stroll down memory lane? Ag, why not? Have a fantastic day, world champions.

[source:walesonline]