Steve Morris Rugby
In many ways, this Super 12 season marks the start of the examination of the relative strengths of New Zealand and South African rugby, a test that it has taken this country two full seasons in which we have not fully understood the questions being put to our players in the toughest provincial competition in the world.
When Dick Muir’s Cape Stormers take the field at Newlands this Friday night to do battle with the Wellington Hurricanes under the iron fist of Bull Allen, the hastily- rewritten South African guidebooks on how this southern hemisphere championship is contested, will come under the microscope.
Since its transformation from the Super 10 in 1996, the Super 12 has been a regional proving-ground for the New Zealanders; a place to expose their top players to a series every bit as tough – and arguably more demanding in terms of physical strength and travelling – than a Test rubber.
The South African Rugby Football Union’s formula for strengthening this country’s representatives will not be without in-built problems. Not least of these will be a lack of true and established identity in the sides for both players and public.
This weekend, all four South African composite sides have the chance to establish themselves on home soil; an opportunity to play themselves into the competition without the travail of schlepping halfway across the globe to meet tough teams in arduous conditions and in front of hostile crowds.
Apart from the ineptly named Golden Cats – a melange of players from Gauteng, Free State and Griquas – who make the trip to Loftus Versfeld to face the Northern Bulls on Saturday, Muir’s side stay in sight of Table Mountain and the Coastal Sharks remain within spitting distance of the beaches washed by the warm Indian Ocean currents in Durban.
The Sharks – like the Wildebeests in the Vodacom Cup, a Natal side in virtually everything but name – have the toughest assignment of the opening weekend, with Gary Teichmann’s team facing the perennial nemesis of South African rugby in the Auckland Blues.
And they do so without the massive presence of Mark Andrews in the second row, something that can hardly leave coach Ian McIntosh with a feeling of security, despite the fact that this year’s Auckland side are without last season’s captain Zinzan Brooke, who has retired to the greener pastures and fatter cheques of the European club game.
There are also any number of question marks over the heads of other key players like inspirational Sean Fitzpatrick, missing through injury from the middle of the front row, scrumhalf Junior Tonu’u and spring- heeled flanker Michael Jones for this opening clash. But then such is the strength in depth of New Zealand rugby in general and the Auckland Blues in particular, that there will be more than enough All Blacks on display to silence any criticisms of an ageing personnel or of their somewhat indifferent warm-up matches.
But the Cats have the merit of having reinstated Hennie le Roux in the midfield after his shock dismissal from national plans by Mallett last season.
If there is anyone who will typify the determination to succeed in Super 12 and climb back to the heights of the World Cup triumph he was so much a part of three seasons ago, it is Le Roux.
And, as in the confrontations between Dalton and Drotske, he will be just one of the many veteran internationals and numerous prospective Test players earmarked for Super 12 who will be more than willing to take any examination the competition throws at them.
Their careers and the future of South African rugby, with the defence of the William Webb-Ellis Trophy in Wales next year fast approaching, depends very much on the pass marks achieved.
Weekend fixtures
Friday: Otago Highlanders v Queensland Reds (Dunedin); Cape Stormers v Wellington Hurricanes (Newlands)
Saturday: Northern Bulls v Golden Cats (Loftus Versfeld); Coastal Sharks v Auckland Blues (King’s Park)
Sunday: New South Wales Warratahs v ACT Brumbies (Sydney)