Robert Ebersohn sticks to the Cheetahs' playing philosophy of running rugby in the match against the Hurricanes.
If anyone had suggested in the early weeks of the season that the Cheetahs would win three of their four games in the Antipodes, it might have been seen as an application to check in at the funny farm. If the same person had predicted that the Sharks and the Stormers would manage one win between them in New Zealand and Australia, then it would have been time to measure for a straitjacket.
The two coastal sides end their tour this weekend. The Sharks play the Force in Perth and the Stormers take on the Rebels in Melbourne. When the fixtures were announced, both those games would have been targeted as must-wins, but now they loom more as might-wins – if the stars are aligned and nothing else goes horribly wrong in the days and hours before kick-off.
This week, both sides had to deal with off-field issues instead of concentrating on winning their last games before flying home. On Tuesday, some old-fashioned journalism suggested that the real problem underlying the Sharks’ five successive defeats was a language issue.
On Wednesday, language came to the fore again as the Stormers were fined $A25 000 plus costs for offensive remarks (and behaviour) towards officials in the match against the Hurricanes in Palmerston North on April 26. Ironically, the Stormers won the game 18-16, although they clearly felt they would have enjoyed a bigger margin if assistant referee Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri had done his job properly.
As for the Sharks, it seems that the old sport of kicking a man when he is down is back in fashion.
Reaction
Christo Buchner’s piece in Beeld on Tuesday rattled a few cages with its suggestion that the English-speaking captain, Keegan Daniel, was at odds with his Afrikaans-speaking colleagues.
There was a time when the game in this country was dominated by this kind of pointless chauvinism. In the late 1980s, for instance, an English-speaking scrumhalf was pinned against a wall in the Springbok dressing room for the crime of not having Afrikaans as a first language.
But that was then and this is now and the Beeld piece was really a reaction to some quotes from John Smit in the Sunday Times. The former Sharks captain, who takes over on July 1 as chief executive, implied that one of his first tasks might be to relieve a few people of their duties, a few people whom he knew well. Beeld speculated that this might refer to the director of commercial affairs, Rudolf Straeuli, and coach John Plumtree.
Given the way the Sharks have played this season, it is fairly obvious that the people directly involved in preparing the team should find their jobs under pressure. By the end of April last year, the Sharks had lost five games in nine starts and Plumtree in particular was being asked to account for the wild swings in form and mood in the camp. The team then won eight out of nine games on the way to the final and everyone summarily forgot there was ever a crisis.
The principal reason why both the Sharks and the Stormers have had eminently forgettable tours is less about how they have played than it is about who has played for them. Both teams have had to endure an exceptionally onerous injury list and the constant need to bring in new players has stripped them of continuity and confidence.
The underlying reasons for the attrition speak more about the tactical approach adopted by South African teams over the past decade.
Jake White era
The idea of kicking possession away and then forcing errors from the opposition began in Jake White’s era. The man now in charge of the Brumbies won the 2007 World Cup that way. But the physical toll it takes has been largely overlooked, for players are far more likely to get injured tackling than when they are being tackled.
If the principal job of a backline player is to kick and tackle, then something has gone wrong with the fundamentals. This might account for the fact that the Stormers have scored fewer tries (17) than any other team in Super Rugby this year. The Sharks have scored 21 tries, but that statistic is skewed by the nine that they got against the hapless Rebels in Durban.
It might be argued, of course, that the Bulls use the White method as well, yet they are third on the log and looking good to clinch the conference.
The one South African team that still prefers to keep the ball in hand is the Cheetahs, and they lost last week, in common with the Sharks and Stormers. This week, the Cheetahs face the Reds and they will need to tighten up dramatically if they are to get back on the bus.
The Reds arrived in Bloemfontein on Monday, fresh from their dominant display against the Sharks, with the best scrumhalf in the world, Will Genia, and a kicking coach who hails from Pretoria.
Braam van Straaten has been working on the kicking technique of Quade Cooper via email to date, but appearing in the flesh in the Free State means one thing: the Cheetahs can’t afford to give away penalties on Saturday.