RUGBY
Andy Capostagno
When the Falcons Rugby Union decided earlier this year to relocate from Brakpan to Kempton Park the headline writers did not stir, even though the final match at the Bosman stadium unfolded in surreal circumstances. Quarter of the way through the Vodacom Cup match between the Falcons and the Lions one floodlight pylon winked out of existence. Shortly before half time a second one gave up the ghost.
It seemed as if the Falcons, in their haste to leave Brakpan, had failed to make the necessary payments to Eskom. One pylon flickered back to life, and then winked out of existence again, to be joined by a third shortly afterwards. With only one pylon working the proceedings took on the aspect of a Tuesday night training run on a club field.
The match finished in darkness and, with the result going against the home team, there seemed to be, quite literally, no light at the end of the tunnel for the union.
The reason for the move to Kempton Park was an economic one. The union felt it would attract more paying spectators if it moved closer to Johannesburg and it was willing to trade that for the inferior facilities at the Barnard stadium.
With the new ground came a new playing strip, an all-red ensemble that made the team look more like Liverpool FC than a serious rugby team.
The Falcons logo even got an overhaul, when it was pointed out that the one they had been using for three years was, in fact, a fish eagle.
All of which was considered largely irrelevant by the rugby community until three weeks ago when the Falcons beat the Sharks in Durban. And even then it was regarded as an aberration, a much-needed wake up call for Rudolf Straeuli’s men.
But now the Super 8 section of the competition has begun and the Falcons are still winning. They came from behind to beat the Pumas in Witbank on Sunday and this weekend they take on Western Province, the defending Currie Cup champions, at their new home near Johannesburg International Airport.
Province are unbeaten this year, but have had some close calls and according to coach Gert Smal, are playing at a level of no more than 70% effectiveness. He has made two injury-enforced changes to the team that beat the Lions at Newlands, bringing in De Wet Barry for Gus Theron at centre and Pieter Dixon for Charl Marais at hooker.
Smal also has to cope with an outbreak of flu in the camp, the result apparently of a sudden shift in Cape Town weather patterns from very wet to very hot over the past few days. In the circumstances he would surely have wished for something other than the match that awaits against the Falcons, a clash that will decide who tops the table going into the final two weeks of league play.
The South African Rugby Football Union will also be secretly hoping that the Falcons stumble. The reason for that hope is that if the Falcons were to continue their winning ways and top the log at the end of the Super 8, they would be one home semifinal away from hosting the Currie Cup final at the Barnard stadium, where the capacity is about 8 000.
Eastern Transvaal, as the Falcons were known for most of the 20th century, have contested the Currie Cup final once before, in 1972 when the boot of Transvaal and Springbok flyhalf Gerald Bosch condemned them to defeat. It has been a long hard road since then, but they have been playing good rugby for a few years now, usually under the watchful eye of coach Phil Pretorius.
They have, during that time, been hard to beat at home, less so at grounds housing Test unions. The statistic that will be worrying Province fans, however, is that the last time the two teams met on the East Rand, in 1998, the Falcons won with a team some way short of the ability of this one.
The partnership that is ripping opposition defences apart is in the centre, where a couple of 22-year-olds, Adrian Jacobs and Ettienne Botha, have struck up an almost telepathic understanding. But neither of these gifted youths could influence a game without the work of the pack and it is the tight five in particular who have raised their game.
With quality ball emerging from the set pieces Pretorius is suggesting that part of his team’s secret is their ability to attack from first phase, the kind of thing that was supposed to have been consigned to history along with the four-point try. If the Falcons win on Saturday it might be the shock to the system, the more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat demonstration that South African rugby needs right now.