The most pointlessly complex Currie Cup system of all time has finally produced exactly the same semifinal match-ups as last year. The main difference is that a year ago, when eight teams contested the Currie Cup, it was a reversion to strength against strength and, what with the Springboks winning the Tri-Nations and all, it was considered something of a vintage season.
By contrast, this year will be remembered for executive bungling (not that there’s anything new in that) of such indecisiveness that a fortnight before the commencement of hostilities few unions understood what they had let themselves in for.
When it became clear that the stronger unions could afford to lose a few games and still begin the Super Eight section on level terms with everyone else, that is exactly what happened. The Bulls, who had lost but six times in 44 matches while accruing a hat trick of titles, lost at Loftus against the Sharks.
That result was meant to signal a changing of the guard, with Dick Muir’s diaper-clad ingénues showing the way forward for the domestic game. The Bulls’ subdue-and-penetrate tactics had become an antediluvian anachronism and the plot was already being lost behind the scenes where the union was arguing with coach Heyneke Meyer over the price of a new contract.
Which is presumably why the Sharks failed to win a single game of consequence in the Super Eight and the Bulls went through unbeaten to claim yet another home semifinal. Oh, and Meyer is back in charge for the foreseeable future and the rest of the teams in the competition are still looking for a way to stop the blue juggernaut.
Last year at Loftus, the Bulls beat the Lions 40-33 to reach the final. It was a humdinger of a match with the Lions scoring three tries by their two most vivid talents: hooker Schalk Brits and winger Bryan Habana. It proved to be the last game that Habana would play for the union, for he signed with the Bulls a few weeks later.
Should the Lions fail in their quest again this year, Saturday will be Brits’s final outing for them before he returns to Western Province. He will leave behind some vivid memories, particularly during the dark days of this year’s Super 12.
With a string of defeats behind them, the Cats were performing less than illustriously in an encounter at Ellis Park when my phone rang. An incredulous journalist said: ”Cappy, there are Springbok backs all over the field and the only time the crowd gets excited is when the hooker gets the ball!” Quite.
So it’s mission impossible again for the Lions this weekend, but it could have been very different. If the Super Eight log had been combined, as it was in 2004, the Lions would have finished second and earned themselves a home semifinal. But the competitions subcommittee of the South African Rugby Union (Saru) decreed otherwise.
Section X and Section Y would be kept apart as rigidly as though one was a randy dog and the other a bitch in season. It meant that before the first ball was knocked on in anger certain classic clashes (as the marketing gurus of Absa have been calling them all season) could not happen in the final.
The Cheetahs could not meet Western Province at any stage other than this weekend’s semifinal at Newlands. Likewise, you couldn’t have a Sharks/Lions final, a Sharks/Bulls final, or a Bulls/Lions final. In a competition necessarily lacking in dramatis personae because of the strength of the five major unions, removing so many variables was more than a little dumb.
And as for the incredibly imaginative appellations of the two sections, presumably that’s what you get when a couple of IT-challenged Saru appointees grapple with Microsoft Excel. So much easier to let the computer spew out ”X” and ”Y” than to dignify the sections with proper names like Chester Williams, Kitch Christie, Naas Botha or Errol Tobias.
Too politically charged, of course.
Anyway, that particular system is already being mothballed, because we have a new one for 2006, one that works! It’s going to be a return to strength versus strength: two divisions of seven and seven, with promotion and relegation. Except that it’s not.
It is not yet widely known that the premier division in 2006 will actually consist of eight teams, with the extra one being the Eastern Cape franchise that will compete in the 2007 Super 14. This is Saru’s way of preparing the new franchise for life at the top, giving coach Pieter de Villiers a whole Currie Cup season to hone his squad and tactics.
It’s an interesting concept, but you have to wonder whether, given the same circumstances, the New Zealand Rugby Union would be equally gung ho with the structure of its National Provincial Championship. Mind you, there’s a long way to go before the start of next year’s Currie Cup and the structure may change several times between then and now.
All of which must seem blissfully irrelevant to the burgers of Loftus and Newlands right now. This time last year, it was assumed that the Bulls would play Province in the final. It looked that way, in fact, right up until the moment 20 minutes before kick off in Cape Town when it began to rain. The downpour washed away home hopes and the Cheetahs won 17-11.
Memories of that game came flooding back last week when the Cheetahs outplayed the Sharks in a Bloemfontein mud bath. With Ryno van der Merwe, this country’s most underrated back-row forward, winning everything on the ground, the Cheetahs showed once again that they are a very different kind of side under Rassie Erasmus than they were under Peet Kleynhans and Gysie Pienaar.
They are far more likely to keep the ball close to the forwards than to spin it wide and they have a very effective, if somewhat one-dimensional, flyhalf in Willem de Waal to punish opposition errors. In Province’s favour is the fact that they have finally found a number 10 worthy of the name in the former Maritzburg College prodigy, Peter Grant.
It is a melancholy fact that neither the Stormers nor Western Province have punched their weight as a team since Braam van Straaten signed to play in England. With a conveyor belt of minor talents in his place and a crash ball inside centre in De Wet Barry, Province had to rely on scoring from turnover ball and broken play.
Things have changed and Grant may well prove the difference between the two sides on Saturday. As for the match in Pretoria, you don’t get rich betting against the Bulls at Loftus. Ultimately, however, we should just hope for a couple of ”classic clashes” to redeem a season of aimless peregrination.