Something intriguing appears to be happening with South African rugby in the second season of the Super 14. With the exception of the Stormers, our teams are learning how to play poorly and win. It is hard to overemphasise how important this is in a World Cup year.
The Sharks top the log after home wins against two of last year’s semifinalists, the Bulls and the Waratahs. Add to that the fact that four of our five franchises have won a game in the first fortnight and you get the best start to a season of Super Rugby that this country has ever had.
The zeitgeist has even permeated the Lions, who beat the Highlanders 11-6 at Ellis Park on Saturday, despite not being able to score a single point in the second half and despite a heroic effort to throw the game away after the hooter had sounded.
This may seem like optimism of the blind, Pollyanna variety, but think back to the history of the Lions franchise and remember how awful the Cats could be. In 2001, under the tutelage of New Zealand’s Laurie Mains, they won seven games and got to the semifinals. In the following five seasons they won a total of seven games and never finished above the bottom two in the log.
In 2004 we were forced into one of those desperate straw-clutching exercises when they only lost by two points to the Crusaders.
The perennial favourites, who finished second to the Brumbies that year, played half a match of perfect rugby, ran up an apparently unassailable lead, then allowed the Cats to score a few dazzling tries. The home side actually hit the front with five minutes to go, but a late Crusaders penalty saw them home 39-37.
We have become accustomed to praising our sides merely for being competitive, for not losing embarrassingly. We watch the Super 14 with a disconsolate air, knowing that possession will be wantonly discarded and that opposition sides with 30% of the ball will do enough to win.
When did the Lions ever defend such a miniscule lead for more than half a match?
Almost certainly coach Loffie Eloff had mentally constructed a post-match dressing room speech that spoke of getting heads back up, focusing on the match ahead instead of the defeat behind and celebrating the fact that the team had been competitive for so long.
Instead, he was able to congratulate them for hanging on, and on Monday he would have taken them through a video analysis explicating how many tries they should have scored against a desperately uninspired Highlanders team.
The Lions may lack depth, but in Jaque Fourie and Heinke van der Merwe, they have two world-class players who might, at the end of the season, propel them to mid-table respectability.
The same cannot be said of the Sharks, who from a base of two home wins and a favourable draw should have the taste of ashes in their mouths come May if they are not competing for a semifinal berth.
If all we had to look back on at this stage was a couple of ugly wins it would not be the cause for much celebration, but the best match of the weekend happened to be between two South African sides, and that doesn’t occur very often.
The Bulls and the Cheetahs have been demonstrably the best two teams in the country for the past two seasons in both Super Rugby and the Currie Cup. As a mark of respect for his opponents, Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer selected four front rankers to his bench for Saturday’s game. He knew he needed go-forward ball for 80 minutes, not just an hour.
Meyer’s prescience was highlighted by the try of the season, perhaps the try of any season, scored by the Cheetahs’ tight-head prop, CJ van der Linde, in the final 10 minutes. Van der Linde got a good one the previous week against the Stormers in Bloemfontein, but this was in a different class.
He received the ball inside his own half, sprinted down the right touchline with all the grace of a bowling ball heading down a mineshaft, stepped inside the last line of defence and flopped over the line for the score that ultimately guaranteed the Cheetahs a bonus point. It took fully five minutes to revive van der Linde, but longer still to wipe the smile from his face.
Pessimists will argue that the tournament will be stood on its head when the 22 rested All Blacks return to view in week eight. At this rate, however, they might prove to be too little and far too late.