Andy Capostagno rugby
Difficult though it might be to comprehend, if the Sharks beat the Chiefs in Rotorua on Saturday they will have qualified for the Super 12 semifinal with three rounds of the competition still to go. Currently lying on 28 points from seven matches, a win would take Rudolf Straeuli’s team to 32 points.
To put that in perspective, in the previous five Super 12 tournaments the
only time 32 points was not good enough for a semifinal berth was the Brumbies in 1996. In their first year of existence, the Brumbies finished fifth despite winning one more game than the team in fourth place, a team that just happened to be the Sharks.
Needless to say, the 2001 version of the Sharks can make that semifinal berth a statistical certainty if they score four tries in beating the Chiefs, thus taking them to 33 points. But, naturally enough, Straeuli will not be counting chickens this week, but working out how to beat New Zealand’s hottest side.
He need look no further for inspiration than the tape of last week’s encounter between the Chiefs and the Cats in Tauranga. Cats’ coach Laurie Mains has been saying all season that his side have been leaving too many tries out on the park and on Sunday the chickens that Straeuli refuses to count came home to roost.
With 70% possession the Cats contrived to lose 22-18. Glen Jackson’s final penalty goal came with seven minutes to go and the Cats could not subsequently find a way to cross their opponents’ line.
The reasons for that failure are easier to comprehend than the fact that not one second of injury time was played. Certainly the players and coaching staff of the Reds will wonder how it came about, given that they lost to the Stormers in George thanks to a try in the seventh minute of injury time.
Whatever the horological discrepancies, however, Mains will know that the match in Hamilton should have been decided well before the final whistle. Once again the Cats’ forwards carried all before them and once again the backs failed to make the most of hard-won ball.
What will concern Mains is that after two years of hard work with his South African charges, when the chips were down against the Chiefs they reverted to type. That is, teamwork and planning went out of the window and the old South African trait of attempting to run over or through, but never around defences reasserted itself.
The Chiefs were thus able to line up in rugby league fashion, safe in the knowledge that as long as they tackled the man with the ball no harm would come to the team. They were able to rely upon the South African obsession with making contact before releasing the ball.
Straeuli has found a way to overcome that obsession without sacrificing the defensive steel that at its best is the envy of the rugby-playing world.
He has also found a way to score tries against good sides and with those two facets in place he can now concentrate on securing not just a semifinal place, but a home one to boot.
So while the Cats lick their wounds and wonder if they will ever have a better chance of winning a game in this competition away from South Africa, the Sharks can ponder the unlikely fact that their record this season gives them the initial advantage wherever and whenever they run on to the field. That is one of the reasons that, come what may from here on in, Straeuli can afford a private smile.
This has been the first Super 12 to be charismatically challenged, lacking as it does a domi-nant team from New Zealand. The Chiefs may yet become that team, but history suggests otherwise. What is more likely is that the elite Brumbies and Sharks will distance themselves from the chasing pack and the third and fourth semifinal places will be the subject of a massive dogfight.
After winning their opening three matches, the Waratahs have begun their downward slide and, hard though it may be to admit, the same may be true of the Cats. The Highlanders, Chiefs, Hurricanes and Crusaders all won last week and one of them is certain to reach the semis.
In the Cats’ favour is the fact that the Hurricanes play the Highlanders in Napier this weekend and it is likely that the loser will be out of the race. Late in the day the Highlanders tight five has come to the party, something that enabled the back row to run riot against the Waratahs last week.
But in Paul Steinmetz and Tana Umaga the ‘Canes may have unearthed the new All Black centre pairing and they look the most likely Kiwi contenders at this point.
Meanwhile, the Stormers can do everyone a favour by beating the Crusaders in Cape Town. It would be churlish to point out that the match marks the second anniversary of the knee injury that reduced Bob Skinstad from sporting god to lowly mortal status. Better perhaps to remember that on April 18 1999 the Stormers beat the Crusaders 28-19 and forget about the subsequent ill-starred celebrations.