It would have been fairly simple before the Currie Cup season began to predict the identities of the four semifinalists. The position of Griquas as plucky Cinderellas is well established, whereas the Pumas and the Leopards lack the resources to compete with the bigger unions. For them, each season is about avoiding relegation.
In light of what transpired in the Super 14, it would have been simple to predict that the Lions would fail to make the knockout stages. But few would have been prepared for their dramatic improvement under coach John Mitchell. He somehow instilled a sense of purpose into the squad even though they lost four games in a row in the early part of the tournament. Notwithstanding a handful of gifted youngsters, he has turned a bunch of utilitarian journeymen into a team, and there can be no higher praise for any coach than that.
But the winner of this season’s Currie Cup will be either the Sharks, Bulls, Western Province or Free State. The Sharks have been the standard-bearers throughout the tournament, but the return this week of the rested Springboks means that the Bulls are suddenly the team to beat.
Everyone will want to avoid the Bulls at semifinal time, because the current holders of the Super 14, the Vodacom Cup and the Currie Cup know how to win knockout matches.
Having topped the log with a game to spare, the Sharks are in the enviable position of being able to rest their stars for Saturday’s clash with Western Province. There may be a complete overhaul of the pack for the game, but because that will entail the return of Bismarck du Plessis, Tendai Mtawarira and Ryan Kankowski it hardly constitutes a weakening of the team.
The question that will have been on coach John Plumtree’s mind all week is which of the remaining three teams the Sharks would like to face in the Durban semifinal. If no one wants to face the Bulls, then it’s a toss-up between the Cheetahs and Province. The Cheetahs were well beaten in Durban during the log phase, but have a good record against the Sharks in all competitions.
That leaves Province, also well beaten in Durban several months ago. Ahead of that match, Province were regarded not merely as contenders but as probable frontrunners. Their halo slipped that day and has not been satisfactorily restored since.
So there is a genuine incentive for the Sharks to win on Saturday. Defeat for Province would relegate them to fourth on the log, assuming that the Bulls beat Griquas in Kimberley and the Cheetahs overcome the Leopards in Phokeng. Points difference suggests that the Cheetahs would then finish second and host the Bulls in Bloemfontein, and Province would have to travel to the East Coast to play the Sharks in the other game.
The incentive for Western Province is also clear. Beat the Sharks at Newlands and they will in all probability host the Cheetahs in Cape Town a week later. The Bulls would then travel to Durban to play the Sharks. The competition has rarely had a better climax and, were it not for the lamentable performances of the Springboks, 2010 would be regarded as another vintage year.
It seems, though, that the South African Rugby Union (Saru) has painted itself into a corner over its handling of controversial coach Peter de Villiers. Saru waited too long to review the Tri-Nations tournament. Perhaps, like the union leaders during the 21-day strike hiatus, they hoped that the problem would just go away. It has not.
As predicted some time ago, the national coach is now looking for excuses to take his strongest team on tour at the end of the year. The latest madness concerns the recently concluded conditioning courses taken on by the senior Springboks. De Villiers said on Tuesday: “The guys have come back refreshed and hungry for rugby”, and clearly he was not merely alluding to a possible three weekends of Currie Cup action.
At the Tri-Nations review, Saru chose to blame De Villiers’s support staff for the mess. Aware that some unpalatable truths had emerged, Saru promptly cancelled its media briefing the day after the review. Then it started making phone calls.
It was at that point that Saru discovered the depth of the problem it had created for itself. First, the list of possible replacements for the support staff is not an extensive one. Second, none of those on the list wished to work alongside De Villiers. Allister Coetzee, Rassie Erasmus, John Mitchell and Frans Ludeke were all sounded out. Each chose to remain in his current lucrative contract rather than join the Springbok cause for what might be a ride of less than a year.
And so Saru finds itself in a completely untenable position just one month away from a Springbok Grand Slam tour of Britain and Ireland. Its attempt at “quiet diplomacy” has failed miserably and can be seen as a doomed attempt to put the cart before the horse. Clearly the problem is not the support staff. The problem is the coach.