There is, as Dorothy observed, no place like home. For South African rugby teams home means winning close games rather than losing them, enjoying the benefit of those 50/50 refereeing decisions and playing in front of crowds that do not believe you to be humourless, cultureless and clueless automatons.
Last Saturday both the Stormers and the Bulls set out on a bold quest to reach the semifinals of the Super 12. Nothing less than an unblemished record from here on in will suffice, which means that the Stormers have made things even more difficult for themselves by failing to claim a bonus point against the Reds.
At least they won the game and did not succumb to a late comeback by the Australians, in marked contrast to the draw against the Highlanders and defeat to the Brumbies on their hugely disappointing antipodean trip. But the 15-13 victory came at a price, with injuries to a host of Springboks.
Unfortunately for coach Gert Smal, the injury list is less important than the continued absence of a dominant flyhalf. Ever since Braam van Straaten left to play in England, both the Stormers and Western Province have been a rudderless ship, albeit one with sound fundamentals.
Smal and Carel du Plessis have tried a host of players in the number 10 shirt in the past three years, from the relatively unknown Pieter Benade and Gareth Wright to Springboks with glowing reputations such as Gaffie du Toit and Werner Greeff. All have, to a greater or lesser degree, been consistently wide of the mark.
It is a sad fact that current incumbent Chris Rossouw is the best of a bad bunch, which brings us to the bun-fight for control of next year’s Super 14 franchises currently being waged by the South African Rugby Union (Saru). In addition to being likely to tear up all six proposals on the table in favour of yet another compromise solution, Saru wants to strengthen the draft system.
Just this week the Cats summoned Willem de Waal to New Zealand. Last year De Waal had a good season with the Bulls in the Super 12 and Free State in the Currie Cup, where his accurate goalkicking masked deficiencies in other areas of his game.
However, to give De Waal his due, he is at least predictable in a positive way, and how Smal must have longed for someone like that during his month abroad.
A true draft system would come to Smal’s rescue. The Bulls began the season with Derick Hougaard at flyhalf and, in his injury-enforced absence, have now settled on Morne Steyn. Steyn and Hougaard have games ideally suited to the Bulls’ forward strength, which means that the gifted Kennedy Tsimba must waste his time on the bench.
It may be that Tsimba’s best days are behind him, in which case his talent has been summarily wasted by a variety of blinkered pedants. It may also be, however, that his best days are still ahead of him, waiting merely for a proper chance with a team that is sorely in need of his instinctive play. A team such as the Stormers, for instance.
In an ideal system Tsimba would have been with the Stormers for the past three years, setting De Wet Barry free to run into spaces instead of faces at inside centre, linking with maverick spirits like Breyton Paulse and Jean de Villiers, and igniting the fires of the thoroughbreds in the back row.
Instead the Stormers soldier on with minor talents in the most important position on the field.
And in case you thought the Stormers had a monopoly of muddled thinking, just imagine how good the Bulls might be when Heyneke Meyer finally works out that his outside centre, JP Nel, is not worthy to touch the hem of Bryan Habana’s garment. Yeesh, but we make things hard for ourselves.