The STP was the culmination of two years' hard work and consultation, Saru president Oregan Hoskins said in a statement.

"The development of this plan was essential for South African rugby to maintain its place as a leading South African sports federation," Hoskins said.

"It has been the No 1 priority for me since I assumed the presidency and for the Executive Council.

"We started this new approach in October 2012 with a Transformation Indaba, since when we have worked very hard and with great determination to deliver a Plan to guide our sport all the way to the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019."

Hoskins said the document was aligned with the government's National Sports Plan and was not only about the number of black players on the field.

"It has six focus areas, demographic representation, access to the game, skills and capacity development, performance, community development and social responsibility and corporate governance," he said.

"Within those six dimensions are 71 key performance indicators for instance we want to introduce 150,000 new primary schoolchildren to the game by 2019, accredit 1,500 new administrators."

He said the plan would also aim to raise preferential procurement to 40 percent from targeted suppliers and increase the number of women in administration to 40 percent, while raising the black representation in our national teams."

Saru chief executive Jurie Roux emphasised that the STP was not a quota system.

"There are no punishments if our targets are not met but without a structured objective, backed by implementation plans we would be nowhere," Roux said.

"Transformation is a critical business imperative in South Africa and if we had not taken this new approach to what had been an organic process up until recently, we would have put our sport in peril of becoming marginalised."

Roux said the plan would unlock untapped talent and had the potential to awaken corporate interest in rugby where it may previously not have existed.

"The simple facts are that the majority of rugby supporters and players at schoolboy and club level in South Africa are black," he said.

"Eighty-four percent of this country's under-18s are black African and we want them in our game in some way.

Roux said rugby was entirely unrecognisable from the game that returned form isolation in 1992, countering the perception that "nothing had changed".

"Saru has had a black president for 17 years, our Executive Council is 75 percent black, we've had a black Springbok coach," he said.

"The leading Springbok try-scorer of all time is black, and the Western Province team that won the Currie Cup in October averaged 40 percent black representation and had a black coach and captain.

He said the sport was not without its challenges in achieving their transformation targets.

"Only one in 35 schools in provinces such as KZN, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and North West play rugby for example, which provides unique challenges for those provinces compared to the Western and Eastern Cape where 60 percent of school rugby is played," Roux said.

"And we know that we are only judged on representation in the Springbok team.

"We've spent R500 million on development in rugby since 1992 and can point to significant advances but the Bok team is the only measure on which we are judged.

"We understand that and we also understand that is also unfair to put that pressure on the Springbok coach without offering him any assistance.

"His teams can only reflect what is going on at the elite end of the domestic game."

--sapa--