Bok prop shootout looms

One thing for sure we have an abundance of props.  

Ex Sport 24

ape Town – There are less than three weeks to go now to a front-row battle that could have seismic Springbok significance.

Mark down the very last match of Super Rugby’s ordinary season on Saturday, June 13 – Sharks v Stormers, Kings Park, 19:10 – if you enjoy seeing the bull-necked prop species strut their industrial stuff.

With a bit of luck, we will get to see the four likeliest candidates for Bok squad berths – two looseheads, two tightheads – go head to head in a derby that is always a take-no-prisoners affair, regardless of the respective log positions of the combatants.

The visiting Stormers ought to be vying strongly for the SA conference honours come that day (if not have it wrapped up already) as well as the best possible finals series playoffs slot.

Make no mistake, the out-of-contention Sharks will only be wishing to end a problematic campaign on a high note by downing their old coastal rivals.

And that’s where the front row scrap, with the Bok 2015 programme looming ever closer, comes into sharp focus.

The Sharks will be dead keen for their two stalwart Test first-choicers of the Heyneke Meyer tenure, Tendai Mtawarira and Jannie du Plessis, to start the derby, bearing in mind awkward memories of the first-round contest at Newlands, comfortably won 29-13 by the Stormers.

On that occasion the home outfit’s Steven Kitshoff – one of the revelations, competition-wide, of the current season – and Vincent Koch gave a scrummaging lesson to a second-string Sharks prop firm of Thomas du Toit and particularly their hard-pressed No 3 Matt Stevens.

At the time the traditional Stormers first-choice as tighthead, Frans Malherbe, was still feeling his way into the campaign as a substitute, following recovery from long-term injury.

The four-cap Bok has since recaptured his starting berth, with Koch generally providing impact as a “20-minute man” in the second half.

So despite the emerging Koch’s own possible international credentials, Malherbe is very much back duelling with the veteran Du Plessis for rights to the Springbok No 3 jersey.

There is an age gap of some eight years between the incumbent, 32, and the pretender to his anchorman crown, and in many respects that makes them a good foil for each other in a Bok squad set-up, with one “hardebaard” dating back to the RWC-winning 2007 and one more youthful element.

But it is on the loosehead side where things look particularly intriguing: the flame-haired Kitshoff, 23, still uncapped at Test level, is undoubtedly the form player in a South African context, currently eclipsing “Beast” – though you also have to take collective pack effectiveness into account – for all of set-piece performance, ball-carrying and tackling oomph.

Little wonder, after Saturday’s latest triumph over the Rebels, that SuperSport pundit and former Bok coach Nick Mallett branded the Stormers’ front row the “best in the competition from a scrummaging point of view”.

Props from other franchises like Trevor Nyakane – aided by his ability to pack down on either side – are not out of the picture as far as Bok candidacy is concerned, but that Durban showdown on June 13 looks increasingly like a spicy meeting of the “big four”.

In short, a pair of ambitious young aspirants are trying to unseat the long-time Springbok props custodians and the derby should provide solid further clues as to which pairing deserves to start the World Cup 2015 lead-up phase in green and gold.

There is a potential spanner in the works in that Malherbe is thought to require one more mandatory “off” weekend for his franchise due to the deal with SARU, although coach Allister Coetzee could pretty confidently give him that rest against either of the Cheetahs (this Saturday) or Lions at Newlands to ensure his presence for the big last-day crunch in the Shark Tank.

As for the Sharks, Du Plessis has played only three of the last four games and, with a bye also still to come before the derby, could probably play both remaining fixture against the Rebels and Stormers.

Mtawarira also sat out the second-last overseas tour match against the Waratahs, so may also have an all-clear to stay at his post for the remainder of the roster.

The final league fixture of the Vodacom Super Rugby season between the Sharks and Stormers has been an eagerly anticipated event from the start of this year’s competition, but there is a strong possibility it might not be what we hope for.

My gut feel says the Stormers will win their next two home games against the Cheetahs and the Lions, that the Brumbies will beat the Bulls in Canberra and that the Waratahs will win their remaining three fixtures against the Lions, Cheetahs and Reds.

Such a scenario could mean the Stormers will go into the last weekend with an outside chance of ending second if they beat the Sharks, but I’m not sure how realistic that would be, considering the Waratahs will be hosting the Reds. Either way, second spot could well be settled by the time the Durban derby kicks off, and the Stormers would have wrapped up the South African conference long before that.

Knowing that they will be in action the following weekend in the first match of the knock-outs could just prompt Stormers coach Allister Coetzee to take the route he successfully took in the Currie Cup last year by fielding an under-strength team in the final league fixture so as to ensure his men are fresh for the play-off phase.

I hope it doesn’t turn out like that, and it is for a reason other than that it would add to the occasion if that Durban match took place with something on the line. If the Stormers did go into that game under-strength it will rob South African rugby of the game within a game that could have a significant bearing on Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer’s selection for the Rugby World Cup.

Perhaps Meyer is already looking at the stats and is intending acting on them. The stats I am referring to are those that relate to both scrumming dominance during the Super Rugby season, as well as those that pertain to what the front-row forwards contribute outside of their primary function. In both spheres, it is the young Stormers props Steve Kitshoff and Frans Malherbe who have led the field when it comes to the South African big men. (Dr Mozzz must be somewhat surprised!!!)

But there is nothing quite like a head-to-head confrontation between front rows in a big-occasion game to confirm or refute the impressions that have been formed. I’ve been looking forward to the match-up ever since I attended a Sharks press conference earlier this season where Bismarck du Plessis, still in his role as captain then, expressed a desire to have a second crack at some of the scrums that had got the better of his unit up to that point.

It was less than two weeks after the Stormers game in Cape Town, where the Sharks scrum was demolished and conceded an embarrassing number of heels against the head. Du Plessis had rightly noted that perhaps his scrum had been caught short because of the sudden switch of emphasis, with scrum units reverting to the old focus of searching for dominance rather than milking penalties through technical strategies.

I’m not sure how the scrumming battle between a full-strength Sharks front row, with Bismarck flanked by brother Jannie and Beast Mtawarira, and the young Stormers front row will turn out in the rematch between the two teams. If it is true that experience counts for everything, then the older Sharks unit may well have absorbed lessons that will enable them to reverse what happened at Newlands.

The point, though, is that it would be great to see the proof of the pudding either way, for at the moment the evidence is mounting that there should be change in the Bok front row, and it mounts considerably every time we watch a Stormers scrum destroy their opposition and the props contribute as carriers and tacklers outside of that phase.

Here is a compelling stat in Malherbe’s favour, as furnished by the Vodacom Stats App: 70 tackles made against just six missed. That puts him 92nd in the competition in terms of tackles made, and he is a prop who sat out most of the first part of the season! He has played just 461 minutes after initially coming back from a long injury lay-off backing up Vincent Koch from the bench. He has also made 25 carries.

J annie du Plessis, his rival for the No 3 jersey, has played 587 minutes and missed 13 tackles while making 47. Unfortunately, some of those misses have been the crucial type that get highlighted by the SuperSport studio panel. He’s made the same number of carries, with fewer metres gained – 37 for Malherbe against 14 – but that is after playing more than two hours more rugby than the Stormers player has.

On the loosehead side, the Kitshoff stats are also interesting – 63 tackles made with seven missed (ie he misses one in every 9 he makes) and 69 carries. However Mtawarira does stack up well against him, with 54 completed tackles and just five missed, and his 46 carries isn’t that bad, if you consider he has only played 537 minutes against the more than 700 of Kitshoff.

Maybe all these stats don’t matter and it is in the scrum that the main talking is still done, but that is the point – it would be great if the 13 June coastal derby could offer us greater clarity.

What is clear is that the young Stormers props are making waves and are worthy of consideration. After Malherbe made his starting debut against Wales in 2013, a former Springbok captain that I bumped into on a Cardiff station platform asked: “Who is this Malherbe?” I doubt he’d ask that question now.