For South African teams to win in the Super 12, 15 players need to give a full 80 minutes of effort
RUGBY: Steve Morris
SOMEONE, somewhere must have the answer to the conundrum of South African sides failing to go the distance in individual Super 12 games and mounting a concerted campaign in the toughest provincial competition in world rugby.
If they do, it’s not the South African coaches. The possible exception to this rather sweeping generalisation is Natal’s Ian McIntosh, who has put together the only side from this country that travels anything near comfortably to New Zealand and Australia.
It is also no use grousing about local refereeing decisions – even those as shocking as the head-high stiff-arm on Cabous van der Westhuizen by Auckland’s Joeli Vidiri, referee Paddy O’Brien’s hesitancy with the red card and the flat refusal of the New Zealand authorities to cite the flying Fijian.
The reasoning behind the New Zealand Rugby Union’s reticence has more than a little to do with some of the treatment dished out to their players in South Africa.
But it is also firmly established in the hastily-written rules Sanzar use to guide the competition.
Having been sent to the sin bin by O’Brien for poleaxing Van der Westhuizen, these rules stipulate that the player has already been sanctioned and no further action is to be taken. In the case of Van der Westhuizen, this is patently a nonsense.
But these rules exist and the strict adherence to the book by the Australians and New Zealanders may well have been rooted in the fact that they have been less than happy with some of the interpretations by South African referees on their away trips here. But they have largely accepted them as just one of the many facets of a complex game; rub of the green if you like.
More importantly, the Aussies and Kiwis understand that in the intensity of a competition as fierce as Super 12, you have to aim at playing beyond the stipulated 80 minutes in much the same way as a top athlete in the 100m dash mentally sets the tape at 110m.
Natal’s 39-17 defeat at the hands of Auckland provides a glaring example of this. They were well in the game for the first hour – indeed, Kevin Putt’s interception provided the first try of the afternoon – but then succumbed to the flood of Auckland power in the last 20 minutes. History should have shown the South Africans that this is a trademark of All Black rugby. They never stop playing until they have their boots off in the dressing room.
Natal more than most should remember the ignominy of surrendering Super 12 matches to Auckland and Queensland at home last season in the dying minutes of both games that certainly cost them home-ground advantage in the final and surely cost them the encounter with Auckland.
This weekend, Natal take on Queensland in Brisbane in a match that promises to be every bit as tough and uncompromising as the meeting with Auckland last Sunday.
The Australians lie at the foot of the log and are desperate to pass the wooden spoon on to Otago, who have a two-point edge at present. Natal, on the other hand, currently lie in fourth place on the log behind Auckland and ACT on level points at 27 with Wellington, but well adrift on points difference.
The Auckland game is one that Natal would have budgeted to lose in their pre-campaign planning. Beating the Blues at home is an ideal to strive for, but hardly a bankable commodity. The Sharks can make no such concessions against Queensland. To stay within reach of the leaders, they have to go full out for maximum points against Queensland.
More especially as Wellington, one of the real form sides of the competition, have a home assignment against a New South Wales side still reeling from the 56-9 thumping they were on the wrong end of against the ACT Brumbies in their last outing.
Equally, the Gauteng Lions have a tough task. Hit by a veritable raft of injuries that seems to be their lot, no matter what the team is called – remember Transvaal’s walking wounded tour last season? – they face a Waikato side nursing the same variety of lower-table wounds as Queensland.
Gauteng still have a slim outside chance of making the four-team semi-finals, but as things stand at present that will depend more on a total Natal collapse than on realistically challenging the other three sides currently in the top four.
At home, Northern Transvaal seem finally to be firing on at least 90% of their cylinders after a disastrous start to a season that has included player revolts, coaching shenanigans and the spectre of an administration that is telling them how to play when it cannot keep the union’s books in order.
The Blue Bulls face Canterbury at Loftus Versfeld in a match that brings them both into the fray on 16 points. But the Crusaders have recently upped their act to a level where, while they might not start favourites in the thin Highveld winter air, certainly doesn’t make them rank outsiders to produce an upset.
No team that owns the kicking talents of an Andrew Mehrtens and a pack as mobile and committed as Canterbury can ever be taken lightly. And, like all the sides from the Land of the Long White Cloud, they will play through the full passage of the game as if there was nothing more they wanted than to continue for another 80.
Surely – after the four years of competition if you include the old Super 10 – we must have learnt something about the effectiveness of this philosophy from our opponents?
But then again, perhaps not.