RUGBY: Jon Swift
SUDDENLY, at a stroke if you like, the rugby season has taken a different slant, a different emphasis. Transvaal, the power province that the steely will and vast resources of Louis Luyt assembled and the deep insightful thinking of Kitch Christie honed to perfection in the 1993 season, have relinquished their hold on the Currie Cup.
Natal have virtually booked their place in the October 14 final. All that now remains is the decider between the rampant bulls of Northern Transvaal and the increasingly cohesive Western Province at the end of this month.
It is a match which is in essence a semi-final to offer the other challenger to the mantle which has fallen from the shoulders of the men who call Ellis Park home
Transvaal’s decline from the heights of two seasons ago is perhaps — in the light of 12 of the team regulars being members of the World Cup squad — symptomatic of the amount of rugby top players have to endure in the almost endless merry-go- round of matches.
It is a pressure to keep playing and keep performing that the advent of professionalism will heighten rather than lessen. There is, as the old saying has it, no such thing as a free lunch.
It can be argued that the novelty of re-emerging onto the world stage was the adrenalin which made Transvaal the Super 10, Currie Cup, Lion Cup and Nite Series winners two years ago.
There was also without doubt the unknown quantity of the South African players and the way they played the game for uitlander sides to reckon with .
This was not not quite as evident last season and while Transvaal retained the Currie Cup with a 56 -33 annihilation in the final on Springbok Park in Bloemfontein — better known as the home of the province’s champion cricket side — the race to the final was nowhere near as lop- sided.
They also held on to the Lion Cup and Nite Series trophies but in the Super 10 , were beaten 21-10 by Queensland and 19-6 by North Harbour to go crashing out of contention.
Now they are out of the Currie Cup, via the player strike at the start of the season which let Eastern Province in for victory over a largely inexperienced and untried Transvaal combination which meant a two- point leeway to make up right from the start, and a truly nailbiting 18-12 defeat at the hands of Northern Transvaal at Ellis Park last Saturday.
Now, it’s a seat in the stands without even the dignity of being able to surrender a title on the field.
But with the emphasis now on the up-coming clash between Western Province and Northern Transvaal, there has been time for the former champions to do some rethinking and readjustment to the engine room of the side which battled so hard this season.
It is only right that World Cup hooker Chris Rossouw finally gets a game ahead of James Dalton and the change is not forced by injury or suspension.
With No 8 Rudolph Straeuli moving into the second row to partner Phillip Schutte in the continued absence of the suspended Kobus Wiese, Rossouw’s incisive throwing at lineout — an area that even as ardent a Dalton supporter as I am, cannot claim he has mastered — becomes even more crucial.
Francois Pienaar, the agonies of his provincial season no doubt leavening the heady stuff of the World Cup campaign, moves back to the back of the scrum to take Straeuli’s spot — something he has already done four times this season.
Charles, the other Rossouw brother, fills Pienaar’s No 6 jersey to complete the backrow with Ian Macdonald in a trio which will hopefully show a little more thrust and decisiveness than was evident last weekend.
It is an irony then that Free State, the side they face this weekend, have also had so little luck in a campaign which opened with them ensconced as the second-best side in the country, promised so much for the Free State centenary year and celebrated the opening of the new stadium.
Free State are a better side than the wooden-spoonist position would indicate and — though one hardly dare think it — could be an outfit to drive the final truth home to Transvaal; they are a tired and disorganised outfit this time round.