Ex Supersport:
For the first time in Vodacom Super Rugby’s 23-year history will South Africa enter the final weekend of regular season play with all of its participants still firmly in playoff contention.
While not one of our teams are mathematically guaranteed a place in the quarterfinals, we would be very unlucky if we don’t end up with at least two (possibly even three) knock-out contestants when the dust settles on this year’s league phase on Saturday night.
The one thing we won’t be doing in two weeks’ time, however, is hosting a playoff here in the Republic, and that makes our actual chances of claiming the title approach zero. Winning a Super Rugby knock-out match overseas is possible - winning three in a row, not so much.
It is still worth celebrating, though, that for once not even one of our teams are mixing it with the cellar-dwellers on the overall log. Then add the fact that while New Zealand and Australia have only two teams each in the current top eight, South Africa has three.
The reason for the improvement in our overall competitiveness is the fact that we didn’t drop as many points away in Australasia as we normally do.
In fact, out of the 16 games South African sides played in New Zealand and Australia, they’ve lost only six. In a year that the World Cup will be played in the most foreign of conditions, that should give some encouragement.
But let that not distract us from the fact that we are nowhere near the quality of the top four on the points ladder (who will also be the quarterfinal hosts).
You need to look no further than the log to find out why.
Between them the Crusaders, The Jaguares, the Brumbies and the Hurricanes scored an average of 60 tries each this season. The Bulls scored 35, the Stormers 34 and the Sharks 38. That right there is the problematic state of South African rugby in a nutshell.
Despite all the power and pace at their disposal, South African teams just can’t score tries. At least not nearly enough to be serious title contenders. We’ve been tip-toeing around this issue for years, but unless it gets addressed by coaches at franchise level throughout the country, it is bound to get worse.(BEENO OF COURSE HAS LONG LAMENTED THE LACK OF CREATIVITY AND ABYSMAL BACKLINE PLAY)
We are finally at a point where all our Super Rugby teams have an appetite for attacking rugby, but when it comes to conceiving and executing productive attacking plays we still fall woefully short. We can’t keep blaming players for a lack of skill, at some point we have to start asking questions about those people that we have entrusted player development to.
If a talent-rich country like ours produces one under-developed generation of players after the other, then the problem lies with the system, not the products.
The exception to that rule this year were the Lions. The Joburg tribe at least had a displayable tries-for tally of 51. It is nowhere near the 77 tries they scored in the regular season last year, but it is still way better than the rest of their countrymen.
The problem for the Lions is that they couldn’t defend (HAS BEEN THE PROBLEM FOR YEARS - BIT LIKE THE CHEETAHS). Between them the Bulls, the Stormers and the Sharks conceded an average of 43 tries so far this season. The Lions conceded 57.
It is true that no team has ever tackled their way to a Super Rugby title, but no team has ever won it with a negative points difference for the season either. Despite rumours to the contrary, a solid defence remains as important in Super Rugby as it is in any other tournament in the world.
But let’s now look forward instead.
What all of 2019 left us with is three SA teams in the top half of the 2019 Super Rugby log, with our other team just one log point behind. You’ll have to decide for yourself if that is good or bad, all we can tell you is that this is about as good as it will get for a while.
Saturday’s two derbies are not only there to decide who will play who in the quarterfinals, it will also mark the end of an era (one that stretches back all the way to when the game first turned professional).
Saturday will be the last time we see so many crowd favourites play their last Super Rugby games ever on South African soil. It will also be the last time we will see our local teams in action here before SA Rugby’s new contracting model kicks in.
When we all report back for viewing duties in February 2020 our teams will be awash with new faces - and our franchises’ payrolls awash with Tippex.
Gone are the days of rich Unions buying all the talent they can get their hands on at schools level and paying them as much as they please. This time next year we will be well on our way to cutting towards the agreed-upon limit of a mere 45 professional contracts per Union coupled with a salary cap of R60 million.
It sounds like a massive step backwards, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.
The focus will be forced away from sheer quantity at junior level towards quality throughout the squad. There is no picking and choosing or cold-shouldering if you have only 45 players, you have no choice but to make sure that every single player is sufficiently developed and equipped to be the best possible version of himself whenever his team needs him.
There is no use in trying to buy big-name players anymore, even less in trying to keep them here.
In a world where everyone in the southern hemisphere was running out of money, we were the first ones to take the bold step of changing our system so that it no longer rewards the Union with the most cash available, but the one that can get the best out of a limited amount of talent.
Whether you like it or not, that is the only way we can survive as a rugby nation until perhaps one day – and by quite some miracle – economic conditions change internationally in a way that favours those of us on the poor side of the equator.
It may also be the jolt South African provincial teams needed to get them to take player development as seriously as the rest of the world does. Isn’t that exactly what we asked for above?
Saturday will be a day of goodbyes.
It will be goodbye to so many players that have entertained us for so many years. May good fortune follow all of you wherever you’re headed.
And then goodbye to an old way of doing things, one that was slowly getting us nowhere. May good fortune follow all of us for bravely making this blindfolded leap into the unknown.
