South African teams might not make the Super 12 semi-finals, but their improved play is a boost for the Boks
Andy Capostagno
If only the wake-up call had come sooner. For most of the first six weeks of the Super 12, South African teams induced a sense of unremitting gloom with one- dimensional game plans and the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Now, suddenly, the Cats and the Stormers are playing some of the best rugby in the competition.
Why should this be? Is it because the players in our regional sides had to be introduced to each other in the month prior to the start of the tournament? Is it that they warmed up against Vodacom Cup teams instead of other Super 12 sides? Is it that South Africans are terminally poor travellers? Is it the fear of being dropped? Or is it simply a case of poor biorhythms?
If we had the answer to half of those questions we would be anticipating success in the playoffs rather than playing games with calculators. The fact is that the Stormers will not qualify, come what may, while the Cats need favours from unlikely sources to reach the semi-finals.
It is only the bigger picture that gives off a rosier hue. Certain key Springboks are pulling their weight again, some in spectacular fashion. Rassie Erasmus, for instance, is currently interpreting the art of back-row play like no one has since the retirement of Zinzan Brooke.
The first signs came against the Sharks in Durban a month ago. Erasmus scored two tries that day, the second of which needed pace, a choice of angle and, most important of all, the instinct to know where you are needed on the field before your brain has had a chance to argue against it.
A week later he was simply inspirational against the Crusaders at Ellis Park, popping up all over the place as though he and he alone had access to the hyperspace button. And then came last week’s heroics against the Reds, which included a stab through, chase, catch and offload which allowed Japie Mulder to score a key try.
It is sometimes too easy to praise the glamour boys of the back row. There are those who will tell you that Wallaby David Wilson is the apotheosis of flank play precisely because you never see him. But always assuming that someone is doing the Wilson fetching job, a flanker like Erasmus can add a thrill a minute to a game, and isn’t that why we watch it in the first place? It goes without saying that the Cats will miss him horribly on Friday night.
Elsewhere in the Cats’ ranks, Chester
Williams continues to do an impression of the hardest-working man in show business, Mulder is beginning to match his 1995 World Cup buddy in the comeback stakes and Grant Esterhuizen is showing the form which marked him out when he began with the Blue Bulls three seasons ago.
But the player who adds the magic when it is most needed is Thinus Delport, happily restored to full-back and apparently injected with something far more effective than cortisone: confidence.
It is impossible to gauge what the big time will do to a person, but in 1997 Delport went from club rugby with Rand Afrikaans University, through the Lions and straight into a Springbok tour.
At some stage he seems to have uttered to himself a phrase something like, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto”, and from that moment on he lost his way.
Now he is back, something that doubtless has much to do with the fact that his current coach, Laurie Mains, is a former All Black full-back. Sometimes it takes only a tap on the shoulder and a few reassuring words, other times it takes an expert. Whatever has happened, it is good to have Delport back. But however well certain players are performing, in the cruel here and now that is largely an irrelevance.
It remains the case that the Brumbies are capable of playing better rugby than anyone else and that the Crusaders know how to win when the chips are down. Which is not to say that either side is infallible – both have lost recently.
But below the pedigree sides the bun
fight has begun. The Blues are currently third in the log, but they finish against the Cats and the Reds in Johannesburg and Brisbane, tough encounters, both.
The Hurricanes, fourth on points difference, play the Stormers in Cape Town on Sunday and finish against the Bulls in Pretoria. The Highlanders, who are two points behind their countrymen, play the Bulls in Witbank on Saturday and the Waratahs in Sydney next week.
On the face of it the Highlanders have the easiest run in of the three and two wins would almost certainly be good enough, while a bonus point on top would clinch it.
The Hurricanes and the Blues can probably only count on one win each and it is likely to come down to points difference on who gets the fourth and final spot.
It is not impossible that the Reds could become the second Australian team to make the semi-finals, but a betting man would not look beyond three New Zealand sides and the Brumbies.
This might seem a sad indictment of the game in South Africa, but might in fact be irrelevant when it comes to predicting how the Tri- Nations will pan out this year.