Andy Capostagno rugby
‘Well, so much for South African teams helping each other in the Super 12. That lasted about five minutes. Still, at least two South African teams won this week.”
The wise words belong to South African Rugby Football Union CEO Rian
Oberholzer. He was speaking at a function in Randburg where Springbok captain Andre Vos was acclaimed as the Supersport Rugby Hero of 2000 and, more importantly, R1-million was handed over to six nominated charities.
It has been a trying week and this particular function was a much-needed reminder that rugby can be a force for good as well as bad. Imagine you were introducing a friend from overseas to the delights of the game as it is played here and you thought, hey, Durban on a Friday night in late summer, braais, babes and running rugby, can’t go wrong.
Instead you are handed a game with four yellow cards, one red, and a never-ending supply of pointless niggle. ”It’s not usually this bad,” you explain. But then you realise that actually, yes, it is always this bad.
And then you remember the theory that if South African teams psyched themselves up to play Antipodean sides the same way they take on their neighbours they would never lose. But if that’s what it takes to win, then it’s probably not worth winning in the first place.
The Sharks/Bulls game has escaped the worst censure because 24 hours later a game played in infinitely better humour between the Stormers and the Cats included a bone-breaking tackle by Japie Mulder. But one alarming incident on Saturday should not allow us to forget the one thing that characterised Friday night’s game in Durban a shocking lack of ambition.
At least the Stormers and the Cats brought a semblance of tactical appreciation to their encounter. There were multi-phase moves, good competition for the ball at set pieces, broken play running and variety from the halfbacks.
In Durban there were a couple of good tries and that was it. The rest was an ill-mannered scrap for the ball and frequently, in fact, just an ill-mannered scrap. To say in the circumstances that a win is a win is to miss the point.
Let us give the benefit of the doubt to the two sides that finished 11th and 12th on the log last year. This week they can forget about local rivalry and concentrate fully on beating foreign opposition. The Bulls take on the Hurricanes in Wellington; the Sharks host the Brumbies in Durban.
Last year the Bulls ended their losing streak by beating the Hurricanes in Pretoria 47-33. It was a typical example of what has dogged the ‘Canes throughout the existence of this competition, a fast start and a slow, painful finish. Moreover, they are vulnerable on the road. At home they are a different team, and a win for the Bulls or even a bonus point would qualify as the shock of the round.
The Sharks have beaten the Brumbies three times out of five in the competition but last year lost 51-10 in Canberra, and it will be that result that coach Rudolf Straeuli will be focusing upon. It was a rout, the kind of thing that can happen to good sides, such as the Crusaders at Bruce stadium last week.
The International Rugby Board seemed to take umbrage at the success shown by both the Brumbies and the Wallabies last year. It was assumed that any team capable of holding on to the ball so as to make 10-phase moves seem routine, and that furthermore ran so many lines of attack must perforce be cheating.
And yet Andre Watson could only find two examples of obstructive running in last week’s Brumbies/Crusaders encounter. The fact is that the Brumbies control games so well because they have George Gregan at the helm.
Gregan’s core business is to rapidly move the ball away from the point of contact. He does this with a lateral pass that naturally brings runners on to the ball at pace. Two or three times a half (and hardly ever more frequently) Gregan breaks, or kicks into a vacant area. What Gregan does is not difficult; it is simple and repetitive and it works.
Everyone is looking for a theme in this season of new law applications, but some things will always remain the same. Teams that do the simple things well have an advantage over opponents who lack focus. And that is as true of the Cats, who used forward power to subdue the Stormers, as it is of the Brumbies.
The bottom line is that the Stormers fell for it again, allowing physical intimidation to derail their game plan. The Highlanders will not fall for the same thing at Ellis Park this week, and against Laurie Mains’s old buddies the Cats will have to show they can do something other than control the ball among the forwards.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, Alan Solomons, a coach with a rather more one-dimensional CV than his opposite number Bob Dwyer, has to find a way for the Stormers to beat the Waratahs. On the basis of what we saw last week, a dynamic thrashing of the Chiefs as against a naive loss to the Cats, it’s not going to happen.