The best Currie Cup competition of the new millennium has reached the semifinal stage. It’s worth stressing the quality of the rugby, since next year SA Rugby has committed to return to a 14-team structure from the current eight. That will mean many more one-sided contests than has been the case this year, but probably little change in the make-up of the semifinalists.
SA Rugby has decided to fix something that isn’t broken, but that’s an argument for another day. For the record, then, in 2004 the Bulls host the Lions in Pretoria and Western Province play the Cheetahs in Cape Town. Next year one of those four teams might make way for the Sharks, but right now that seems unlikely.
Unquestionably the best four teams have won through to the knock-out stages; and, also unquestionably, the two home teams deserve their status of favourites to meet in the final. The Bulls have lost just one game all season, and that by three points away from home. They secured their home semi-final so early that they could afford two draws to finish the log section.
Western Province finished a distant 10 log points behind the Bulls, yet in some ways they are even more deserving of home advantage. That’s due to the fact that more than half their team were involved with the Springboks during the first round of matches and their coach, Carel du Plessis, was forced to select second-, third-, fourth- and sometimes fifth-choice players.
There were times, indeed, when the provincial jersey seemed a straight swap for the Maties first team, something that didn’t go down terribly well in places such as Tygerberg and Bellville. Corne Uys, Johan Pietersen and Pieter Benade all got summoned from Stellenbosch and for any of that trio to play this weekend it would require a biblical plague to descend. The cold symptoms being displayed by De Wet Barry and Egon Seconds don’t count.
For Province it was always going to be a two-part season — pre- and post-Springbok Tests. The first part was about not losing too many games, the second about ensuring a home semi. In retrospect the game between the Eagles and Province in George in the first month of the tournament was absolutely crucial.
The Eagles had beaten Free State at Outeniqua Park the previous week and seemed on their way to victory against another big-name province. Benade had a miserable day with the boot and when the hooter went Province trailed and were camped on their own 10m line. Somehow they kept the ball alive and Benade made up for all his other errors by scoring the try that ensured not one log point, but four.
Province finished just one point ahead of both the Lions and the Cheetahs and it was Benade’s try as much as any later heroics by the likes of Marius Joubert and Jean de Villiers that ensured their log position. On that basis he should be given the freedom of Newlands this weekend.
Both home teams will start as favourites, but there is good reason to suppose that either or both could lose on the day. The Cheetahs won at Newlands in the first round of matches, albeit against Province sans Springboks. The result was reversed in Bloemfontein in the second round and that may seem more germane.
But an interesting question was posed to Du Plessis in a recent press conference: Did the coach think that in some ways the Province backs and back row might have too much skill? In other words, did they routinely attempt the apparently impossible when often more utilitarian methods would work better?
Semifinals are notoriously fraught affairs and stage fright is not uncommon. Province successfully avoided the Bulls at the knockout stage, but if there were another team capable of beating them at Newlands, the Cheetahs are they. For the second week in a row the Province tight five is overmatched, and the gifted Rassie Erasmus is likely to be at the rudder in his final season as a Cheetahs player.
Erasmus and coach Piet Kleynhans are unlikely to be bold enough to drop their ace goal kicker, Willem de Waal, but their best chance of success would be to introduce Kennedy Tsimba at flyhalf sooner rather than later. Solid, predictable, forward- oriented rugby won’t work against Province, who only need 35% of the ball to win a game. Unpredictable rugby just might.
At Loftus the Lions have drawn the short straw. The Bulls are the best side in the country, capable of winning by 20 points against any of the other three semifinalists. The Lions made a fist of things a month ago at Loftus for the 40 minutes that Andre Pretorius was on the field. Pretorius’s hamstring injury killed that game as a contest.
This week Pretorius and two other rich talents, Bryan Habana and Enrico Januarie, have made miraculous recoveries from what looked like serious injuries, and will all start against the Bulls. If all three finish the game a few critics may have to tuck into some fairly sizeable portions of humble pie, but that’s unlikely.
It is more likely that each has recognised the enormity of the occasion and asked the medical team to turn a blind eye just this once. The Bulls will ruthlessly expose anything less than fully fit players and will inevitably host the final against Western Province next week.