Andy Capostagno Rugby
Deja vu. The Springbok captain is involved in negotiations to form a players’ union, Louis Luyt is in the news and euphoria over Springbok success has died down to a hoarse croak. Take yourself back to August 1995, less than two months after South
Africa had won the World Cup.
Louis Luyt was in court trying, successfully, to prevent Australian wide-boy Ross
Turnbull from signing up the 150 best players in South Africa to a rugby circus
sponsored by Kerry Packer. If successful Turnbull would have turned South African
Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) into a toothless tiger. Sound familiar? This time around Luyt again won his case, this time against the government, but it was a pyrrhic victory. He lost the war.
Francois Pienaar was Turnbull’s agent, a fact that ultimately ended his association with Springbok rugby, for, while we may have forgotten about some of the key issues by now, Luyt never forgets. Meanwhile, the players who were not part of the World Cup squad saw money coming into Sarfu, but little of it leaving to form a nest in their own pockets.
On August 14 1995, the press were summoned to a meeting in the east of Johannesburg, not knowing quite what to expect. In walked 10 prominent players to announce the formation of the South African Players’ Association.
Among them was Tiaan Strauss, passed over for the World Cup in favour of Robbie
Brink. The association’s attorney, Jasper Raats read a prepared statement.
“The players’ association will evolve into a players’ union to deal with all matters
concerning players’ interests. This was done to enable them to speak as a unified body to address pressing issues and to ensure that decisions that affect players are made with players’ participation.”
Laudable sentiments. What happened to them?
Three years down the line is there a players representative on the executive board of Sarfu? Is there, fairy-cakes.
Subsequent events have revealed: slush money was paid to Pienaar when the emphasis was shifted to the World Cup Springboks; Luyt clinched a deal which removed
every financial worry from the 28 lucky men for a period of three years; the provinces
found a means by which to bankrupt themselves; and the players’ association went
away.
Allegations sprang up this week about a R1-million cheque from Luyt to Pienaar,
allegedly to convince the blond flanker not to lead his men to Packer, although the cheque (published on Beeld’s front page on Wednesday) was dated three months after
the Packer wrangle had ended.
Now the players’ association is back with a shiny new acronym, Sarpa, the South
African Rugby Players’ Association. Presumably the addition of the word “rugby” to the title is to differentiate the organisation from every other players’ association in this country, of which there are as many as there are hairs on FW de Klerk’s head.
As for disgraced Western Stormers prop Toks van der Linde – who was sent home
while touring New Zealand last month for calling an emigrated South African woman a “kaffir”, and was fined R10 000 by Sarfu this week and effectively suspended for a month – no players’ association can help with foot-in-mouth disease.
To add another twist, Gary Janks is putting forward Pienaar’s name as a possible
president of Sarfu, an unthinkable situation right up to the moment that Luyt resigned.
And if that were to happen, what price the current Springbok captain being co-opted on to the board of Sarfu? It would be a revolutionary step, but in a professional milieu it is a step whose time has come.
However, it is to be hoped that if Gary Teichmann has considered the possible scope of his future commitments, such thoughts have not got in the way of preparations for this weekend’s vital Super 12 game at King’s Park.
It has come down to this. If the Coastal Sharks beat the Canterbury Crusaders the two teams will stay in Durban and play each other again the following week in the Super 12 semi-final. Or rather, they will if the Wellington Hurricanes don’t do everyone a huge favour by beating Auckland in Wellington in the early hours of Saturday morning, South African time.
If Auckland lose and fail to secure a bonus point, the winner of the King’s Park match will finish at the top of the table, thus earning a home semi-final and, if successful in that, a home final. If Auckland beats Wellington, they cannot be toppled from the top of the perch and the prospect of a hat trick of Super 12 wins for the Blues looms.
In the event of two teams being level at the top of the table, the log will be decided by points for and against ratios, followed by who beat whom in the log games, a scenario
which should favour the Sharks, who beat Auckland at King’s Park in the opening
weekend of the competition. There is even a scenario where three teams can finish level on points, but I’m lost already, so I won’t confuse you further.
Suffice to say that the most likely scenario in two weeks time is Auckland against the Sharks at Eden Park. For that to happen the Sharks have to rediscover the form of a month ago and then find a way to stifle the creative genius of Andrew Mehrtens, the Crusaders’ fly-half. Henry Honiball came out good against the Queensland Reds last week and the onus is probably on “Lem” to shut down his opposite number. A few of those bone-crunching tackles early on wouldn’t go amiss. That, and a little drumming
into Shark heads that May in Durban is a lot nicer than May in Christchurch.
At the beginning of the tournament the Crusaders could almost have been written off for this tie. In 1996, the first year of the Super 12, they were bottom of the log and last year only a renaissance in the second half of the season enabled them to finish mid-table.
Hopes were higher this time around, after all they had the All Black half-back pair in Justin Marshall and Mehrtens. But the opening game against the Chiefs in Albany was lost 23-25 and disaster struck in Christchurch the following week when Marshall
snapped an Achilles tendon and was ruled out for the whole tournament.
It took Mehrtens almost exactly one month to learn how to play alongside his new
scrumhalf, Aaron Flynn, and the Crusaders managed just one win from their first four games. How times have changed. Based around a no-frills pack where flanker Todd
Blackadder earns the purple heart every game, the Crusaders are a confusing mixture
of old-fashioned virtues and audacious invention.
In what other team would anyone pick the slowest guy to play on the wing? Norm
Berryman wears a skullcap, is built like a prop and would probably lose a 40m dash against Os du Randt. But he has the priceless ability to stand on his feet through a tackle and he is a support runner par excellence.
Berryman doesn’t get the ball from set play very often, because when Mehrtens isn’t kicking for position the ball is normally carried forward by one or both of the straightest running centres in the game, Tabai Matson and Mark Mayerhofler.
To stifle the Crusaders, the Sharks will have to do two things: close down Mehrtens, or at least force him into kicking badly, and stop the centres breaking the gain line. The latter task is complicated by the likely non-availability of Pieter Muller, who is enjoying the kind of Indian summer that elder brother Helgard had last year.
In the past Ian McIntosh has resorted to playing Honiball at inside centre to shore up the tackling deficiencies, but that would be unwise here, when Honiball is playing so well at fly-half. The best way to stop a side playing is to keep the ball away from them and Mac will be concentrating on the retention of set piece ball. He is fortunate in the fact that Steve Atherton is back at his best at the age of 33 and that a big game is due from Mark Andrews.
The Sharks’s front row has gelled at last. And, with the injuries to Du Randt and James Dalton and the loss of form by Naka Drotske, the next Springbok front row could be Olli le Roux, Chris Rossouw and Adrian Garvey.
Outside the pack, the onus will be on keeping the ball in hand. Every New Zealand
Super 12 side relishes setting up attacking movements from their own 22 from misdirected kicks. Berryman is a master at the counter and has great support from the developing skills of fullback Daryll Gibson. The Sharks have an attacking fullback of their own, of course, name of Andr Joubert.
But the great man needs a stern defensive performance ahead of an eye-catching attacking display in order to earn a tick in the column marked “Mallett’s men”. Before Kitch Christie made Joubert a permanent fixture in the national side his defence was constantly
questioned. It is happening again as age begins to take its effect, but he is too good a player not to rise to the challenge.
The Crusaders are unquestionably the team of the moment, but expect Mac the strategist to come up with a way to subdue them. Expect a full house at King’s Park and expect a car park braai of biblical proportions. It could even last right through the week to the next game between the Sharks and the Crusaders.