Did Rudolf Straeuli make a mistake by fielding his B team against the Reds last week?
Andy Capostagno
Two years ago, when Alan Solomons picked a Stormers B team to play against the Highlanders in Dunedin there was an outcry. The whole point of the Super 12, screamed Solly’s critics, was that it pitted strength against strength in every round.
Last week Rudolf Straeuli picked his Sharks B team to play the Reds in Brisbane and there was scarcely a murmur of discontent. Instead we praised the man for recognising the need to rest key players and to blood youngsters who may be needed for the tougher games to come. So who’s zoomin’ who?
First let us acknowledge that the two incidents are not directly comparable. The Stormers were playing only their third match of the season (having won the first two) and Solomons took a tactical decision to give his reserves a run against a team that he believed in his heart of hearts could not be beaten at the House of Pain, whatever side he picked.
By contrast Straeuli’s team were playing for the ninth week in a row, had already assured themselves of a semifinal berth (statistically speaking) and had done enough to suggest they might still win in Brisbane, even with all the changes.
Furthermore, the consequences of the two decisions speak for themselves. The Stormers lost 46-14 against the Highlanders and, after an ill-judged player strike on the morning of the semifinal in Cape Town, they lost to the same team 33-18 two months later.
Last weekend the Sharks led 17-3 at halftime and, despite a stirring second-half comeback by the Reds, might have drawn or won the game had a blatant obstruction on Butch James at the end of the final movement been penalised.
Even so they earned a bonus point, which was enough to convince even the most pessimistic statistician of their progress to the semifinals. In addition, the Reds are most unlikely to join them in the last four. All of the foregoing has served to convince the great South African rugby public that Straeuli has done nothing wrong and much right.
But what if the Sharks lose against the Crusaders this week and, following a bye in the next round, lose their final match against the Stormers in Cape Town? What will the critics say then? That Straeuli should have weighed his selection policy more carefully and recognised that the Reds were a far easier prospect than either of his side’s last two opponents?
The evidence is building week by week that there is something interesting happening to the Super 12. Maybe what has happened is that after five years of famine, South Africans have come to realise that to win this competition you do what you have to, and let the moral high ground be developed into a townhouse complex. With ocean views.
After all is said and done, Straeuli and his team have the one thing that everyone wants at this stage of the competition; they have their destiny in their own hands. They know that they have two games to play in the next three weeks and that a win in one should assure them of a home semifinal.
There is not a team in the log who would not willingly swap places with the Sharks, although Laurie Mains and the Cats might argue that point, placed as they are, just two points behind the Sharks with a similar workload and apparently easier opponents in the Reds and the Bulls.
There is, however, nothing easy about playing the Reds in Brisbane, as the Sharks discovered last week. And the meticulous Mains will no doubt have pointed out to his players in training this week that in the five meetings between the two in the Super 12, the Reds have won four.
The Reds also won the two encounters against the old Transvaal in the Super 10, including the 1995 final, a one sided 30-16 affair. It is yet another example of the attritional aspect of the modern game to look at the two sides who played at Ellis Park on April 8 1995.
Daniel Herbert and Michael Foley remain for the Reds, Mark Connors was on the bench, but not one of the Transvaal starting line-up will take the field at Ballymore this weekend. Japie Mulder was on the bench (in the days when someone had to get injured for you to come off it) and a certain Rudolf Straeuli captained the team from eighth man.
The good news is that the one Cats win was at Ellis Park last year, 36-32. Furthermore, this Cats team is a good deal stronger than its counterpart of 12 months ago.
The forwards turn out performances of international standard every week and the backs are scoring tries at last. The Reds are a good side, but this week against this team they are beatable.