If playing in the Super 12 is like playing a Test every week, then the matches this weekend are the series decider for three South African teams
RUGBY:Steve Morris
INTERESTING that South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) supremo, Louis Luyt, would pick this week to espouse his enthusiasm for the Super 12 series.
True, Luyt was talking about the strength of the competition in general and the fact that the meetings of the top provinces from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia have given the southern hemisphere even more of an ascendancy in the game.
But it is an equally hard fact that three of the sides he represents face make-or- break matches in their quest to make the semi-finals. Bragadoccio? Who would accuse Luyt of that?
That Super 12 represents rugby at an intensity that has never been encountered before is beyond doubt. The attrition rate on players and teams has been frightening.
Japie Mulder has said as much, equating playing in the three-nation series with “playing a Test every week” in his summation of the pace and fervour of the competition.
Mulder has a very valid point following last weekend’s humbling 63-22 defeat of the Gauteng Lions at the hands of a rampant Auckland Blues. More devastating for the side that used to play as Transvaal was the loss of captain Kobus Wiese and playmaker Hennie le Roux.
Both are back in Johannesburg, Wiese nursing a sore head as a legacy of his on- field concussion and the mercurial Le Roux out of action with a groin strain.
In the aftermath of a thoroughly humiliating 10-try to three defeat, Gauteng coach Ray Mordt summed up the differences in South African and Australasian strengths perfectly. “The biggest difference,” said a chastened Mordt, “was in the recycling of the ball and the mobility of their tight five around the field.” Just so.
On Friday night in Christchurch, Gauteng face the Canterbury Crusaders, a side who, while they may not have the massive power in depth of Auckland, rely on just the observations Mordt made as the basis of their game plan. Certainly this was the case in the 26-26 draw Canterbury recorded against Natal last time out.
Natal, it must be said, burgled a draw against a team reduced to 14 men for 60 minutes after Canterbury prop Stu Loe was sent packing by referee Paddy O’Brien for unneccesary and injudicious use of the boot in a ruck.
Canterbury – helped by an uncharacteristic rash of indecision and dubious options by the Natal half-back pairing of Kevin Putt and Henry Honiball – still managed to grab the major share of the possession, seemingly turning the ball over at will and more than holding their own in defence as Natal pounded away at their line.
This then is the side Gauteng take on. They do so without a captain, a flyhalf and injured hooker James Dalton, still one of the few forwards in this country capable of matching the Aussies and New Zealanders in his ability to wrench the ball free in the tight-loose.
The spate of injuries experienced by the Gauteng squad mirrors last season’s campaign and makes a job that was always going to be a tough one that much harder. Yet it is a game they have to win and win well if they are to keep in touch with the ACT Brumbies, stave off the challenge of Wellington and stay in touch with the top four on the log.
But if Gauteng have their own foothills to negotiate this weekend, Natal face the seemingly impenetrable crag of Auckland – sans the devoutly religious Michael Jones – in the Sunday showpiece that is already being billed as the mini-final.
Mordt’s assessment of the inability of South African sides to keep the ball in their hands rings doubly true for this encounter. And, one must add, is exacerbated by the knowledge that Auckland are playing better than they ever have and Natal seem to have hit one of those patches of lassitude which cost them so dear in the home losses to the Blues and Queensland last season. And playing away nogal.
Few would argue that coach Ian McIntosh – still the South African game’s supreme strategist – can take heart from the fact that his team scored four tries to Canterbury’s two in their last outing. But then the eventual scoreline failed to reflect that salient fact and, above all, results count.
He and Gary Teichmann will also remember that it was on Auckland’s home ground that Natal surrendered the title last year. And that one of the key figures in that match was the crumple-faced All Black lock Robin Brooke.
Brooke is back in the side to partner Leo Lafaiall’ii – one of the finds of the season – in the Auckland second row after a thundering shoulder charge on Canterbury fullback Leon MacDonald earned him an unscheduled holiday from the rigours of Super 12.
It is in this area that Natal have shown some cracks. Mark Andrews and the ever- willing John Slade have played their hearts out, but the innovations of lineout play which have emerged – most noticeably the three-four mid-line split – have seemingly left them behind.
McIntosh will doubtless have been working hard on this vital aspect for if Andrews and Slade are overpowered in this department, Natal are on a hiding to nothing against a side almost certin to enjoy more than their allotted share in the loose.
For Free State, the scenario is somewhat different. Now that the arduous tour Down Under is over, they have home-ground advantage over Waikato in Bloemfontein.
Helgard Muller’s enigmatic mixture of youth and experience have it all to do, yet the open enthusiasm of their play has won them far more friends than detractors.
And it is interesting in the extreme that the side Luyt’s Sarfu were unenthusiastic about allowing into the elite competition should have turned out to be the team everyone wants to watch.
Perhaps, with the British Lions on their way to this country, Luyt should have held his sentiments until a later date.