No complaints as South Africa’s hopes prepare to take on Brumbies
Andy Capostagno
There are many factors that have propelled the Sharks to the Super 12 final, but four words are as important as any: “No complaints on tour.” That was the motto Rudolf Straeuli chose at the start of his first season as a Super 12 coach and he was holding on grimly to it after the semifinal defeat of the Cats in Durban.
A final in a different time zone? No problem. Two days in Sydney instead of four in Canberra? Not ideal, but okay. Playing against the best side in the competition? Hey, somebody’s gotta do it.
Straeuli is the first to admit that the Sharks benefited from five successive home games at the start of the competition and is happy to accept the role of underdog in the final. After all, Straeuli’s greatest day as a player was as an underdog for the Springboks against the All Blacks in the 1995 World Cup final.
The memory of that campaign is clearly one of the things that drive Straeuli as a coach. His rugby philosophy was shaped by the late Kitch Christie and watching him stand on the B field at King’s Park in February, urging exhausted players to one more effort and then one more was to see the much-missed Springbok coach reborn.
So there was no partying after Saturday’s win, just a gentle reminder that history does not remember losers. That is something Eddie Jones will also be drumming into his Brumbies. The Canberra-based side are into their third final of the past five years, but having lost the first two they are in danger of being remembered as a team who played beautiful rugby but collapsed under pressure.
This will probably be Jones’s last game at the helm before he is asked to succeed Rod MacQueen as coach of the Wallabies and both he and his players have many more reasons to be nervous than the Sharks.
For one thing the Brumbies must do without Stirling Mortlock, ace goal-kicker and line-breaking centre. For another they will not be able to rely on the powerful ball carrying of Owen Finnegan, pending appeal.
Finnegan was yellow carded for stamping on the head of Reds hooker Michael Foley last week and as it was his third sin binning of the season a mandatory ban was applied. But we can expect the case to get nasty, not just because the Brumbies are desperate to have Finnegan play, but because a good legal brain could detect skulduggery in the administration of the yellow card.
Referee Jonathan Kaplan asked touch judge Andre Watson whether he might call for the telly ref to rule on Finnegan’s act. Watson said yes, the eye in the sky watched the television footage and then gave the wrong decision.
Putting a foot on the head of an opponent in a ruck when the ball is nowhere near is a red card offence, not yellow, as Brendan Venter will attest, having been sent off for the same offence against Uruguay in the 1999 World Cup. Be that as it may, the crucial loophole is that referees may only call for rulings on foul play from the telly ref with effect from June 1 this year.
It will not take too long for the Brumbies legal team to raise this issue and from there it is a short step to accusing Kaplan of bias towards a South African team, especially when they discover he resides in KwaZulu-Natal.
But whatever the outcome of the Finnegan case the Brumbies would be well advised to take a leaf out of the Sharks’ book on zero complaints. A team that sniffs conspiracy theories around every corner is not concentrating properly on the task in hand.
And the task is a stern one. The Sharks are a much better team than anyone gave them credit for midway through the season. It was easy enough to suggest that they might freeze against the power of the Cats pack in the semifinal, but as it turned out the match was embarrassingly one-sided in every aspect bar possession.
The Cats had 50% of the ball and managed four penalties, while with the same opportunities the Sharks scored five tries. Why should this be? The short answer is that Butch James gave the best performance by a South African flyhalf for three years.
Will a repeat of their play against the Cats be enough to beat the Brumbies? This is what Straeuli had to say this week: “I don’t like talking before a game but there is no secret really in what you have to do against them. You must put on a lot of pressure, cut down their space and break up their continuity when they do get the ball otherwise they will cut you to pieces.
“A lot is made of their attacking play, but people forget they are an outstanding defensive team. In their last three games they have let through only one try so we are looking to break through their [defensive] wall.”
Watch out for the individual battles that may decide the issue: James against Stephen Larkham and George Smith against Warren Britz. Last year it rained and the Crusaders did likewise on the Brumbies parade. This year let’s hope for a dry day and a classic match.