In Bloemfontein last week the Cheetahs lost 23-5 to the Bulls in the Currie Cup and the likelihood is that with two rounds of log play left, they will not make the semifinals.
The Cheetahs have been in every final for the last four years, losing in 2004, winning in 2005 and 2007 and sharing the trophy with the Bulls in 2006. An era of unprecedented success for the Free State has ended.
It ended not with a bang, but a whimper. The Cheetahs had plenty of ball against the Bulls, but they couldn’t put points on the board.
Even the lone try they scored through the precocious Robert Ebersohn probably wouldn’t have been given in those blessedly uncomplicated days before the TMO.
In retrospect, the construction work at Vodacom Park stands as a metaphor for the rugby played there this year. As usual Free State lost a host of players after winning last year’s final and were forced to use youngsters in the Super 14. It was evident that they were not quite ready, as was the case for the stadium itself after the latest Fifa inspection for 2010.
The players and management have not complained, but there is something very disconcerting about playing sport alongside a hard-hat area.
The old dressing rooms have been gutted and the players no longer come out of the tunnel at half-time. Instead they are forced to change next to the car park and walk through a seated area in the far corner to reach the field.
It will be great when the stadium is finished, but right now it is something of a liability. And the metaphor stands. This Cheetahs team has the seeds of greatness within: Ebersohn, Heinrich Brussow, Meyer Bosman, Wian du Preez, not to mention the established stars like Juan Smith and CJ van der Linde. But like the stadium, it needs time.
It is only four years since the Cheetahs won the second Currie Cup in their history, yet this is the list of those who played in that final who have moved on: Willem de Waal, Philip Burger, Michael Claassens, Ryno van der Merwe, Jannie du Plessis, Naka Drotske, Ollie le Roux, Os du Randt, Chris Kruger and Dale Heidtmann.
Drotske is now the coach and the man receiving the brickbats because 2008 is not going to be Free State’s year. Du Randt has retired. The rest have either moved provinces or continents.
The key departure, of course, was not a player, but a coach: Rassie Erasmus. It seems clear from what Erasmus achieved with the Cheetahs and now Western Province that he is not cut from ordinary cloth. Who would have thought that we would miss his eccentric presence on the roof of the stadium, flashing disco lights to dictate the course of the game?
Erasmus was successful because of his self-belief. He turned his back on the romantic notion of the Free State as the guardians of running rugby and won the Currie Cup by rotating five prop forwards in the final against the Bulls. He also went out and bought players, quite the opposite of the norm at the Cheetahs.
Among his most prescient signings were the two SWD Eagles, Bevin Fortuin and Kabamba Floors. In the normal scheme of things Fortuin (from the township of Blanco in George) and Floors (from Oudtshoorn) would have regarded the Currie Cup as an unattainable Holy Grail. Erasmus offered them a chance and they grabbed it and the trophy with both hands.
It is noticeable that Erasmus’s departure has coincided with disciplinary problems for Floors and injury woes for Fortuin. Injuries come and go, of course, but discipline is one of those ingredients that you have to work on.
The late Kitch Christie was a master of man management who managed to get the most out of the notoriously difficult James Small. It may be that Erasmus has similar skills.
It would be a wise man who put money on Erasmus being the Springbok coach for the next World Cup. It would be nice to think that he had been in the job and building towards it for 18 months beforehand, but in the current climate that seems wildly unlikely.
Instead it’s likely to be ”an ambulance job”, as Christie referred to his own appointment by Louis Luyt in August 1994.
Talking of Luyt, it may be that the time has come for democracy to bite the dust.
This week’s antics in Parliament, together with the change in leadership at Cricket South Africa, serve to remind us of a simpler time in this country, when everyone looked up to big men: Nelson Mandela in politics, Ali Bacher in cricket and Louis Luyt in rugby.
What has happened to the three institutions formerly run by the above trio gives truth to the old saw, that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
Democracy is fine as far as it goes, but we need a few benevolent dictators to grease its wheels from time to time, otherwise we end up going to democratic hell in a handcart.