RUGBY:Steve Morris
IT is a sad state of affairs when the top sides in this country are left to fight it out among themselves for the scraps of the Super 12 semi-final berths. But, as things currently stand in the maelstrom of the three-nation provincial competition, this is indeed the case.
With the Auckland Blues, Wellington Hurricanes and ACT Brumbies firmly astride the top of the log and all looking almost certain starters for the play-off stages, the fight for the fourth semi-final spot lies between Natal, Gauteng and Northern Transvaal – none of whom are likely to amass enough points in the two games remaining to ensure home-ground advantage in the play-offs.
In this respect it is also a case for some bewilderment that Free State, the unheralded Cheetahs who have played some of the most unhindered and enterprising rugby of the competition, will probably be the whipping boys.
Free State face Canterbury in Bloemfontein this weekend in a match where victory for the Cheetahs will surely only mean the addition of some extra breathing space for the other South African teams from a side which was unlucky not to beat Natal and then recorded the only white-wash to date over the wounded Luyt Lions.
Under the knowledgeable – if at times petulant – tutorship of Helgard Muller, Free State have been a revelation in Super 12 company this season, and it remains an enduring mystery why the South African Rugby Football Union’s brainstrust had any doubts about their fitness to take on the best sides from Australia and New Zealand.
Natal remain the best shot for a spot in the last four, needing only two points from their remaining two matches against the Blue Bulls and Gauteng to see off any chance the Waikato Chiefs have of making the semi-finals on a strictly arithmetical formula.
But both Northerns and the limping Lions are still in with a shout if they take the full 10 points still available with the try bonus on offer.
For Gauteng, this looks to be an impossibility. This weekend they face the lately re-awakened Queensland Reds at Ballymore in the last match of what has been a truly disastrous tour down under.
Predictions in Super 12 have proved all but impossiible, but the Lions, lacking the input and drive of players of the stature of Kobus Wiese, Ian Macdonald, Hennie le Roux and Japie Mulder through injury and fielding a side of virtual newcomers, do not look to have the guns to beat a combination that roundly humiliated Natal in last weekend’s 40-3 rout in Brisbane.
A loss at Ballymore will leave Gauteng stranded on 22 points and right out of contention, leaving the door open for Natal to again become the leading representative of this country’s rugby among the sides of the southern hemisphere.
In many ways, this is right and just. Natal – despite their lapses -have proved two things in their Super 12 campaign; they have consistently been the only side with the pattern of play to match the New Zealand and Australian game, and are the only side with a consistency of logic in their coaching.
The first undoubtedly stems from the latter and the rest of this country’s coaches could do a lot worse than examine in minute detail just what it is that Ian McIntosh is doing. More especially, how he is able to consistently produce players as if from a bottomless magician’s hat to suit the circumstances. This, more than anything, is the mark of a fine coach.
In this respect, Northerns have had their problems this season, a players’ revolt ousting John Williams and Eugene van As in favour of Kitch Christie and Uli Schmidt, and then a boardroom putsch reversing the process once the playing contracts had been signed and sealed.
Northerns brought some brief fire back into the embers of their Super 12 hopes with a nail-biting 23-22 win over Canterbury at Loftus Versfeld last weekend, but it was anything but a convincing performance.
There seems to be a rudderless look to the way they go about their task. For, while there is boundless individual talent in the Pretoria team, it is almost as if they had met for the first time on the morning of the game.
This is best illustrated in the captaincy issue. Ruben Kruger, appointed at the beginning of the season, has made way for veteran Adriaan Richter. Add in Joost van der Westhuizen, and at times against Canterbury it was difficult to judge just who was the chairman of an on-field three- man management committee.
Northerns, like Gauteng, have to win everything left to them with full points and bonuses to have any chance of pulling back the seven points they trail Natal by. This Sunday they meet at King’s Park in Durban and the betting must be on Natal, even if Mark Andrews will probably miss this one for the Sharks and Krynauw Otto is back to boost the Blue Bulls’ line-outs.
It all points to Natal making it to the semis. But they will almost surely play their first match in the knockout series away and, should they be lucky enough to get through to their second successive final, once again have to compete for the trophy on foreign soil.