Natal have bounced back from a hiding by Northern Transvaal and are playing sparkling rugby just in time for their tough Super 12 tour Down Under
RUGBY: Jon Swift
THERE is, in the current vernacular, a phrase which opines that whatever goes round comes round. It is one of those seemingly inane bits of homespun philosophy with particular relevance to sport in general and the Natal rugby side in particular.
Our Currie Cup champions have manfully taken some early-season lumps and come out of it with last weekend’s clinical 63-25 demolition of the Waikato Chiefs at King’s Park last weekend. It was a staggering turnaround in the light of the champion province’s earlier sorties in the new Super 12 competition.
It is apposite to go back to these before examining just how Natal have managed the renaissance in their rugby, a revival of form and spirit which they will have to carry with them if they are to have any chance of success in the four matches they face in the space of 13 days in Australia and New Zealand.
Natal showed flashes of what was to come in beating the hapless Western Province 28-22 after fading badly in the last quarter against a side who look destined to carry the wooden spoon into next season’s competition.
Then came the disastrous second outing against Northern Transvaal at Loftus Versveld and a humiliating 30-8 hiding. There were very few signs in the Natal performance that the reputation of last season’s heroics would translate into the substance expected of this.
Then came the meeting with Waikato. While the Natal performance was not without flaw — most notably the continued lack of form from the place-kicking of Henry Honiball — things finally started to gel.
Natal looked like a side willing to take on the world and enjoying themselves doing so.
In this respect, too much cannot be made of the contribution of the Natal front five. It is here that the side will face their fiercest challenges Down Under. Australian and New Zealand tight forwards, regardless at what level, are about as uncompromising a set of individuals as you can imagine.
They all believe fiercely in the oldest tenet of the game: win the ball up front before you let the men in frilly jockstraps who make up the backline play with the ball. And while it would be inane to suggest that there are any backline players in the Super 12 who would be more suited to flower arrangement than fighting for the gainline, it is not a bad philosophy for a forward to hold.
Possession is and will remain the prerequisite for winning rugby sides. It starts at the rucks and mauls and continues through to the lineout, such a vital single aspect of the modern game.
Natal skipper Gary Teichmann admitted after the rousing victory that his side had gone into the match with the aim of spreading the ball wide and keeping the huge Waikato pack moving. That in itself is often far easier said than done. You have to take the lumps to get a game plan like that working for you. Natal did.
There was hardly a point of breakdown that the Natal pack did not reach in numbers and while it was more often than not Wayne Fyvie — could you wish for a more honest flanker in
any side? — and Teichmann who were first
there, the rest were right on their heels.
Witness to this is the fact that the only one of eight tries which did not go to the backs came from Ollie le Roux’s ability to do the tough stuff up front and still maintain the mobility and handling to allow him to exploit the opening he did.
Still, there was more. The lineouts gave the critics some cause for concern before the match. If the form of Mark Andrews and John Slade continues Down Under, there should be few worries for coach Ian McIntosh.
In this respect, Andrews, seemingly so ineffective against Province and Northerns, came back into his own. This is not to downplay the role of the ever-willing Slade. But against a trio as awesome on paper as Ian Jones, Mark Crooksley and Blair Larsen — all of them with All Black second row experience — the performances of Andrews and Slade were little short of remarkable.
It was almost as if they had adopted the maxim of former South African Test lock, Moaner van Heerden — whose brother Wickus, while he might lack Moaner’s bulk, makes up for it with fire on the side of the Natal scrum.
“Remember,” Moaner is said to have told every one of his opponents in the lineout, “my ball is my ball. Your ball we’ll talk about.”
As a story, this has no doubt been embellished by the passing of time. But like the forward’s mental image of the foppery of backline players, it is a solid pattern of positive thinking. And one that Andrews and Slade surely employed to their advantage against the Waikato giants.
It is also to be remembered when talking about the Natal pack that they have iron man Steve Atherton and the highly promising Dieter Kriese waiting in the wings as well as a front-rower of as hardened an international character as Puma Federico Mendez going with them to the Antipodes. Natal will need them.
But all that said about the forwards, it was the backs who really glittered against a Waikato line which included All Black trio Eric Rush, Frank Bunce and Walter Little alongside the giant pigtailed Jona Lomu clone Steve Berryman.
They never allowed the Waikato backs to really get going — thanks in no small part to the superb tackling of Honiball who harried them from the start and more than made up for his lack of success with the boot.
Ironically, it was the weakness Honiball showed with the boot which gave Andre Joubert the chance to show his talents, and the 30 points which he racked up as his personal tally turned him from the somewhat uncertain fullback of the previous weekend back into the matchwinner he undoubtedly is. There is simply no argument with a try and a match tally of 10 kicks landed in 11 attempts.
Bringing Dick Muir back into the middle to partner Jeremy Thomson also paid huge dividends, the pair threatening the opposition on attack and flattening them out on attack. Hopefully Natal will resolve any lasting contractual problems with Muir, pay him what he has always been worth, and get on with what they do best.
But in all this, there was the return of the James Small of old. Three tries is a high water mark in any career. Against a side like Waikato, it represents a floodline not likely to be reached again for a while.
Small has had his problems — both on and off the field — but he remains one of the truly world class players in this country on his day.
One memory will surely last longer than most from the Waikato match amid a welter of flashbacks of hard graft and moves executed well and at speed. It is that of Small doing what he does best, pinning his ears back and going for the corner flag as if he owned it. This he did in the third of his three tries, outpacing Eric Rush in a run all of 60m down the field.
The punching of the air with an upraised fist symbolised his own return to form. But more important, it signalled that of the whole side. Natal may not win the Super 12, but they will be one of the sides to beat. And as such, carry many of the hopes of South Africa with them as they fly out to meet the unbeaten Australian Capital Territory — the bizarrely-named Brumbies — in the first outing of their tour in Canberra on March 29.
But win or lose, for the province, the wheel has very definitely turned.