Andy Capostagno RUGBY
Two weeks into the Super 12 and already a few predictions are looking sick. The form lines seemed to suggest that this would be Australia’s year, but the Reds have been humiliated twice, the Brumbies lost at Canberra and the Waratahs won one and lost one on their South African tour.
The New Zealand sides are playing all the rugby and at this stage the only slender hope that South Africa and Australia can cling to is that the Kiwis have all peaked too early.
Two years ago the Hurricanes began with three mightily impressive wins away from home, but it was the Crusaders, who lost three of their first four games, who ended up with the title.
This year the Hurricanes look even better than they did in 1998 and the back three of Christian Cullen, Tana Umaga and Jonah Lomu are all on the way to restoring tarnished reputations.
Lomu even managed to score a try with a chip, chase and gather against the Sharks in week one which suggests he is working on his game; a year ago he may still have scored the try, but he would have done it with brute strength rather than finesse.
We will know a lot more about the Hurricanes after this week’s journey to play the Highlanders at the House of Pain in Dunedin.
The Highlanders were the most thrilling team in Super 12 1999 and they began with a stylish 50-point drubbing of the Reds this time around.
But they looked anything but title contenders against the Sharks last week, despite squeaking through 27-20.
A second successive bad day at the office for Gaffie du Toit allowed the Highlanders the latitude they were not given at close quarters and it was noticeable how more efficient the Sharks looked when Clinton van Rensburg took over the flyhalf berth.
Which is not to say that it is time to bin Du Toit, merely that it is clear that he has not yet struck up a meaningful relationship with Chad Alcock at scrumhalf.
All eyes should be on Dunedin this weekend for, as much as this tournament is about peaking at the right time, it is also about encounters between well- matched sides. The Highlanders have the better pack, the Hurricanes the better backs.
The fact that the match will be refereed by a New Zealander should also ensure a spectacle, in much the same way as last week’s local spat between the Chiefs and the Blues.
The first 20 minutes of that game at North Harbour Stadium were about as good as rugby gets.
The Blues scored twice before the Chiefs had done anything other than kick off, yet the score at the end of the game favoured the Chiefs.
Former Sharks coach Ian McIntosh had a ready answer for the open nature of the game. He said, “It was refereed by Paddy O’Brien who ignores the bodies flying over the top at the breakdown and just lets everyone play.”
Mac suggested that it has been a New Zealand trait among referees for years to turn a blind eye to irrelevant offenses as long as the ball is playable.
He suggests that in this country the opposite is the case.
There is a reason for the difference. After long years of isolation our officials are more fearful of scrutiny from the International Rugby Board than those in New Zealand.
It would be interesting to do a time and motion study on the two most contrasting games on offer this weekend; Highlanders/Hurricanes and Stormers/Bulls.
It would be a safe bet to assume that the ball will be in play a lot longer in the former than in the latter.
Not that that has necessarily got anything to do with the referee in one being a Kiwi and in the other a South African. There is the matter of ball skills to be taken into account also.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that South African sides are adhering to a stereotype which says that if you take the ball through three phases of play you will automatically create gaps in the opposition defence.
Such a theory takes no account of man-to- man marking and ignores the fact that in rugby league, a game which customarily takes the game through five phases, if you haven’t done anything in particular with the ball after five tackles you are forced to hand it to the opposition.
What seems to mark the difference between South African and New Zealand teams is that the latter habitually mingle possession between backs and forwards, whereas the former attack either through one or the other.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the home team which seems most capable of breaking the mould has a New Zealander to coach it and the great Hennie le Roux at flyhalf.