Andy Colquhoun Rugby
The Stormers should have been given a ticker- tape parade down Adderley Street when they arrived back in Cape Town earlier this week.
Wins Down Under by South African sides occur only as frequently as Fiji fail to win the Hong Kong Sevens – which is to say almost never.
The storm in a scrum cap over coach Alan Solomons’s decision to field a second XV against Otago and over the state of the Sydney Football Stadium pitch – where the Stormers produced a marvellously focused performance to defeat the Waratahs – blurred the magnitude of their achievement.
The statistics brutally underscore just how difficult it has been for South African teams to win overseas. The Stormers’ win over the Waratahs was only the third time a South African side has won on Australian soil in 22 attempts. Their victory in Wellington was the fifth in New Zealand in 32 attempts. That is eight wins in 54 attempts or, more distressingly, a loss ratio of six virtually every seven matches.
The Stormers’ feat of pulling off the double on the away tour has only been done twice before and each time it was good enough to see the Sharks reach the semi-finals. Precedent is firmly on the Stormers’ side.
But complicating their route into the last four is the fact that the 1999 Super 12 is the most even of the four to date. With the halfway mark approaching, it is not inconceivable, either on paper or on the evidence of current form, that any of nine sides could still reach the semi-finals.
It doesn’t take the wisdom of Solomons – although the Stormers’ coach has plenty of that – to realise that the Stormers have merely put themselves in a position to have a chance of reaching the semi-finals.
They end their programme with six home games. It may appear a downhill jog to the finishing line – the problem is that the road is heavily mined.
Among their visitors are the Sharks and Cats – and you know how unpredictable derbies are – as well as last year’s finalists in Canterbury and Auckland and it all begins on Saturday with the visit of the Queensland Reds.
Sensibly, Solomons has talked of winning four of the six and collecting a reasonable set of bonus points.
The lowest number of points recorded to claim a semi-final place is 30 – which might be enough in a year such as this.
The Reds are one of two undefeated teams in the competition (the others are the Sharks) but have hardly been pulling up any trees.
They have scored a meagre eight tries from their five games (compare that to 21 from the Highlanders), but have conceded only six in reply.
Australian sides find it almost as hard to win over here as we find it to win over there (five in 22), although the Reds have managed it on three of those occasions.
The Sharks’ committed performance against the Highlanders kept the leading pack together, and if they can similarly squeeze the life out of the Hurricanes in East London on Saturday, they will inch nearer to a fourth successive semi-final place.
That would give them a fourth win, and two more victories (against the Stormers and the Bulls) before they end their season on tour would leave them in sight of the finishing line. By that time one win in Australasia may be all they need.
The sub-plot on Saturday will feature the meeting of the vintage Rolls Royce of fullbacks in Andr Joubert and the Hurricanes’ sporty little number 15, Christian Cullen.
Joubert is 35 this month, but his performances this season have made Springbok coach Nick Mallett sit up and take notice.
“In the past it may have been necessary to bring through a young player or to give another player a chance, but this is the year of the World Cup and if Andr is the best fullback in South Africa, then he will be given the number 15 jersey,” said Mallett.
The Cats revived their season with a win over the Hurricanes on Saturday, although they made rather harder work of it than they should have.
In the nature of these particular beasts, the hapless Bulls could gore them at Ellis Park on Saturday.
But if the Cats clock up a third win in some style they could have a spring in their step before setting off on a tour that includes three matches in New Zealand.
With the bye before they leave they could even get some of their injured backs on the aircraft. They have the talent, if only …
Surely the worst of the season is over for the Bulls, whose 73-9 defeat by the Brumbies at the weekend was the largest in the history of the competition. The 64-point margin easily eclipsed the previous worst of 47 points by which the Brumbies beat the Waratahs two years ago (56-9) in Canberra.
There will have to be changes to the structure of the squad and the coaching set- up next season, but there are goals for them this season – the greatest of which is to avoid becoming the first team in Super 12 history to go through the season without a victory.