Is it really five years since Rassie Erasmus bashed his head on the ceiling at Loftus Versfeld? The Cheetahs coach leapt out of his chair when Jonathan Kaplan blew the final whistle of the 2005 Currie Cup final. Dismissed as no-hopers before the game, Free State beat the Bulls 29-25 and thereby won the golden trophy for only the second time in their history.
This week the two teams meet again at the same venue, with the same referee and, as was the case in 2005, no one gives the Cheetahs a chance.
Erasmus has moved to Cape Town and the side is now coached by Naka Drotske. The 2005 final was Drotske’s last match as a player and the delirium etched on his face as he lifted the Currie Cup spoke volumes. Administrators from other countries may not want to accept it, but to South African rugby players the Currie Cup is bigger than the Super 14.
The Bulls, of course, are the reigning Super 14 champions and they have been in the Currie Cup final in seven of the past eight seasons. Their squad is packed with World Cup and Tri-Nations winners and they are playing at fortress Loftus.
Logic dictates that they should win with something to spare, but when the Currie Cup reaches the knock-out stage, logic tends to fly out of
the window.
That was certainly the case for the Sharks in the Durban semifinal. John Plumtree’s men built up an apparently unassailable lead and then allowed the Cheetahs back into the game.
An intercept try and one that relied on the brute force of WP Nel were enough to scramble the minds of the Sharks, who spent the last quarter trying to drop a goal as if that were the only way to win.
Western Province lacked the self-belief needed to beat the Bulls in the other semifinal. Having lost their last log fixture against the Lions they were mentally fragile and those who pointed out that Province had a soft draw may have been right.
They got to play the major unions minus their Springboks for the most part. The lack of firepower in the team was camouflaged until it really mattered.
The immediate future for Province is difficult to gauge. Having lost their best player, Jean de Villiers, to Ireland and their pack leader, Luke Watson, to England the boardroom has embarked on a signing spree. But we have been here before.
Some years ago Joe van Niekerk travelled down from Gauteng to help assemble a dream back row: Watson, Van Niekerk and Schalk Burger. In reality, injuries dictated that the trio did not play together often and when they did the results were less than stellar. Van Niekerk lost focus and form and now plays in France.
To return to this week’s final, the parallels with 2005 are increasingly obvious, right down to the Cheetahs’ desperate lack of depth in the lock position. In the 2005 final Erasmus picked a bench of three props and the vertically challenged flank Kabamba Floors.
He told his two locks, Corniel van Zyl and Barend Pieterse: ‘I don’t care if you’ve got a broken arm, you’re not coming off.â€
On the day the match followed the pattern most people expected with the Bulls building a commanding lead and the Cheetahs seemingly happy simply to have reached the final. But Erasmus cleared the bench and two of his replacements changed the game. Scrumhalf Falie Oelschig hoisted an up-and-under and it fell between Fourie du Preez and Johan Roets, two men you could normally bet your house on under the high ball. The ball bounced accommodatingly into the arms of Meyer Bosman and the 20-year-old raced in unopposed for the winning try.
Only a fool would discount something similar occurring at Loftus this time, but the bookmakers will still install the Bulls as odds-on favourites for the double. If they make it, they will match the Transvaal team that won the Super 10 and Currie Cup in the same season of 1993. Led by Francois Pienaar, that Transvaal side featured a host of players who would lift the World Cup two seasons later.
As it turned out, 1993 was as good as it got for Transvaal and in the wake of professionalism, which arrived the day after the 1995 World Cup final, the team broke up. It is intriguing to speculate whether something similar will happen to this Bulls team. Bryan Habana has already signed for Province and the clock is ticking on the finest lock combination in the world, Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha.
Similarly the end is drawing nigh for Pedrie Wannenburg and Danie Rossouw, two stalwarts who have given their all to the union. Ever since Heyneke Meyer began his successful tenure the Bulls have regarded themselves as a family and Meyer’s successor Frans Ludeke has reaped the rewards of that ethos. But all good things come to an end and there may be some lean years ahead for the union.
There should, however, be enough left in the tank for a last hurrah, providing the Bulls can protect the ball at the breakdowns from the marauding Heinrich Brussow. The neutrals will hope for another Free State Cinderella story, but that couldn’t happen again, could it?