The smaller unions have taken some humiliating beatings this season and these lopsided clashes aren’t good for spectators or players
RUGBY:Jon Swift
AT the heart of every sporting endeavour is the contest. Without this vital ingredient the game itself ceases to be a spectacle, fails to hold the hearts and minds of the followers and does little for the combatants on the wrong end of a hiding.
So it is ironic that over the past two weeks, we have been witness to two great contests and two beatings so severe as to leave the losers on the periphery of the action.
On two Saturdays, South Western Districts have given up a massive 220 points. To their credit, the men from the impoverished Oudtshoorn-George-Knysna pool of players have managed, in adversity, to claw back 34. Even to the arithmetically challenged though, the gulf is obvious.
The contest, and consequently the game, has suffered from the 113-11 hiding from Free State and the 107-23 beating South Western Districts have had to endure in the past fortnight. There is little room for belief that affairs will alter against Northern Transvaal this weekend.
In contrast, the Free State-Griquas clash at Hoffe Park in Kimberley was as enthralling a match as could have been dreamt of and the 28-28 scoreline could not have spelt it out better.
True, Free State managed tries by Andre Venter – a superbly opportunistic chargedown from the Springbok flanker – and Werner Swanepoel against the penalty try awarded to the home side. And equally true that while Franco Smith’s boot kept Griquas in it with a 23-point haul from seven penalties and a conversion, while his brother MJ had what can only be described as a dismal outing, there is, as the great Boy Louw once said, no remarks column on the scoreboard.
In a different way certainly, this match was every bit as tense and, until the eventual whistle, capable of swinging either way, as was the Transvaal -Natal thriller the previous week.
It is perhaps stating the obvious to say that sides like Griquas and the Witbank coalminers from South Eastern Transvaal fully deserve their elevated status, have revelled in the speed and toughness of it all and will remain extremely difficult sides to beat on their home turf.
Griquas have managed seven wins and a draw in their 11-match Currie Cup campaign thus far. The coalminers have done almost as well, notching six wins from 12 games and managing two draws into the bargain.
There is also nothing wrong with the way Boland have fared with six wins from 11 outings at top level. This, though, represents the upside.
In the other half of the equation has been the disappointing form of Eastern Province with just five log points and, going into the final pool game, trailing Border by a point. It has been something of a landslide from two seasons ago when the pride of Port Elizabeth fought their way into the old Super 10 competition on merit.
It is a team which remains one of the great enigmas of South African rugby, a fountainhead of talent, a hive of in- fighting. Interestingly, Grizz Wiley’s approach – deemed too domineering for the Transvaal side – really worked in Port Elizabeth. Perhaps it is indicative of the chasm that exists between the residents of the two cities, or maybe it is just that the manne van die Baai react better to a good moering than the jollers in Jo’burg.
Border, Northern Free State and the often outgunned Eastern Transvaal have done well enough to merit another shot at the big sides in the competition. All have competed well with limited resources.
But right on the fringe lie Western Transvaal and South Western Districts, this season’s whipping boys in a very lopsided home-and-away log set-up. Clearly there are only two options open. Strengthen the sides by pouring in cash for players or players themselves, or drop the bottom sides out of the competition entirely.
If this doesn’t happen, we will continue to get the kind of inequality of results that have been a feature of this season. And there will continue to be contests that barely qualify for the term.