Losing is becoming a habit for the Loftus team and now they face the Brumbies
Andy Capostagno
Pressure comes in different forms. For Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson it is about remaining at the top, safe in the knowledge that he can afford to buy the best players if and when he needs them. For Heyneke Meyer it is a slightly different story. The coach of the Bulls will not sleep tonight. His team has lost all three of its matches to date and last week, against the Waratahs, was simply abonima-bull.
The Waratahs are a good side, better (with Matt Burke at centre and Mat Rogers at fullback) than they were last year. They may even make the semifinals for the first time, but at the end of the day they are a utilitarian side, albeit one that scored 51 points against the Bulls.
This week the least utilitarian side on the planet is coming to Pretoria. Once again put your hands together please for the all-singing, all-dancing, all-conquering Brumbies.
The Super 12 was created in order to pit strength against strength on a weekly basis. In which case, I wonder what the organisers will make of a match that looks set to be the most one-sided seen at Loftus since the Springboks beat Wales 96-13 in 1998.
McNeil Hendriks won his second and last Springbok cap in that game, coming on as a replacement for Stefan Terblanche in the 48th minute. He scored the penultimate try and seemed to be set for great things as a muscular runner with genuine pace, but picked up an injury and played no further part in South Africa’s finest year since readmission.
It is just four years since Hendricks was the toast of Loftus, but injuries and loss of form and confidence have reduced him to a shadow of the man who wore the green and gold with distinction. Against the Waratahs he crossed the line at a key moment in the first half, but wishing to celebrate took a step too far and had the ball jarred from his grasp by Rogers.
At the same ground two weeks earlier, Wylie Human dropped the admittedly poor pass that would have gifted him the winning try against the Cats. And this week Adrian Jacobs attempted to sidestep the issue of playing against the defending champions by admitting frailty.
This last is patent bullderdash, but is consistent with the emerging pattern of institutionalised failure. Put bluntly, the Bulls have been losing for so long that they no longer know how to win. Jacobs may have said he wishes to play Vodacom Cup rugby because he doesn’t feel ready for the Super 12, but deep down it has more to do with guilt through association.
Jacobs, Human and Jaco van der Westhuyzen all played against the Waratahs and all have the talent to play for the Springboks. But Jacobs has worked out, for whatever private reasons there may be, that playing in a losing side every week will, in the long term, be detrimental to his development. It’s hard not to feel a touch of sympathy, but SA Rugby are right to point out that this is no time to run away from responsibility.
Every two-horse race is fundamentally a 50/50 proposition and life, as Alardyce T Merriweather was fond of pointing out, contains a particle of risk, but if the Brumbies come away from Loftus without five log points in the bag something will have gone seriously wrong.
When Eddie Jones left to coach the Wallabies it was assumed that the Brumbies would take time to recover, but on the basis of what they have achieved in the first month of this year’s competition under the guidance of David Nucifora nothing has changed.
They are still the masters of continuity, still possess the best pair of halfbacks in the world and still turn over mountains of possession thanks to the prehensile abilities at close quarters of George Smith. For South African fans it will be hard to appreciate the antics of the Brumbies in such circumstances, but appreciate them we should, for a team such as they may not pass our way again for many years.