Super Rugby on the iPad Photo Galleries Play our Super Rugby games and WIN 'Humble beginnings' - Dewald Potgieter The calm before the Stormers ignite? by Super Wrap 06 March 2013, 07:24
There are very few Super Rugby venues quite as daunting as those in Pretoria and Durban, and most players will tell you there is no shame in losing there.
To be handed a fixtures list that starts you off with that particular itinerary is nothing but bad luck, and not a lot of teams would expect to return home after a trip like that without at least some wounds to lick.
The Stormers, when they saw how they were expected to kick off their 2013 campaign, would have been no different. A slow start would always have been a possibility, but there would have been no reason to reach for the panic button, because a slow start in this competition is certainly not a death penalty.
There’s enough proof to back up that point. The Bulls, for example, won the tournament in 2007 despite starting their campaign with losses to the Sharks and the Western Force and barely scraping past the Cheetahs.
The Crusaders took that one step further. When they won their first title in 1998, they managed to lose three of their first four matches, and that was in the tournament’s far more abbreviated Super 12 form.
But then there’s this: how many examples are there through the years of teams that thought theirs was merely a slow start to a season, only to watch it turn positively disastrous?
It is a question that will slowly start to creep into the back of the Capetonians’ minds this week.
Yes, there is no shame in having lost their opening two games where they did, but can the same be said about how they went about it?
Here are a couple of stats to chew on. When the Stormers topped the log last year, they did so having lost only two games the entire season. More impressively, they trailed their opposition for only 200 of 1 280 regular-season minutes (a mere 16%). This season they’re already down two and have been behind for 104 of 160 minutes, a mark that they only passed in their 12th match last year.
The Stormers started their remarkable 2012 campaign with six consecutive wins, and as was the case for the rest of the year, those wins were built not only on defence, but on a backbone of a brutally efficient pack and inflexible discipline.
This year their line-out, compared to the lofty standards they set 12 months ago, is a shambles. Their scrum, if it’s not going backwards, goes straight down.
What used to be a competitive breakdown is now a ball-stealer’s buffet.
All the while they’re giving away penalties and forcing themselves to do something they’re simply not used to: play catch-up.
Seen in broad daylight, it becomes clear that we may not be dealing with a tough fixtures list here, but with something far worse. We could be looking at that dreaded phenomenon called second-season syndrome.
Simply put, second-season syndrome - or the sophomore slump when Americans talk about it – is the tendency for athletes or teams to fail to live up to the standards set in a breakthrough year the next time they have a go at it. It’s quite a regular occurrence, and there are plenty of examples of the phenomenon everywhere from English Premiership football to your local darts league. And unless we get proven wrong soon, the Stormers will become another one.
Not the team, you may rightly point out. They’ve been to playoffs and have even topped the log before 2012, but the same cannot be said of all their players.
Last year their highlights reels were filled with images of ridiculously young players achieving the seemingly impossible on an almost weekly basis. This year we just see those same youngsters looking ridiculously inexperienced.
The youthful optimism that fuelled them last year seems to be gone. Where there was an unshakeable belief that anything can be achieved there is now just apathy. A feeling that they’ve been there, done that and have long since given away their training shirts.
Yes, we know that there is no pack in this world that wouldn’t miss the physical presence of someone like Eben Etzebeth. That it becomes even worse when you throw Tiaan Liebenberg’s name into the mix. We know they have key players missing, but the same was true last year. In fact, one of the hallmarks of their campaign was how the squad filled in gaps so effortlessly that you never really realised just how big their injured list was.
No, it’s not gaps in the squad, it’s the spark that is missing. And they better find a flint soon, because this weekend they are up against the defending champions, a team that has taken no prisoners so far this season. If they were to lose this match, their upcoming fixtures against the Brumbies and the Crusaders will all of a sudden seem a lot trickier than they already do. And the return clash against the Sharks follows soon thereafter.
Then again, this is the Stormers, a team that built an entire campaign on believing that nothing is impossible. There’s no better way to show that you’re still the best defensive outfit in the competition than by keeping its best attack at bay. There’s no better way to prove to yourself that last year was no fluke, that this season can be just as successful, than by beating the title holders.
That is what we want to see on Saturday. That is what we want to see for the rest of the year. We want this article, if you were to read it in a month’s time, not to be a prophecy but a full-hearted laugh. But it’s not in our hands.
There should be too much quality in that Stormers squad to allow this slump to continue, but they have to turn it around on Saturday.
Here are our teams of the week.
Note: our weekly teams are selected on the past weekend's action only, so overall season form is not a factor. Players in teams with a bye are then obviously not considered.
Super XV for week three:
15. Gareth Anscombe (Chiefs) 14. Frank Halai (Blues) 13. Rene Ranger (Blues) 12. Ben Tapuai (Reds) 11. Asaeli Tikoirotuma (Chiefs) 10. Aaron Cruden (Chiefs) 9. Piri Weepu (Blues) 8. Kieran Read (Crusaders) 7. Liam Gill (Reds) 6. Arno Botha (Bulls) 5. Brodie Retallick (Chiefs) 4. Hugh McMeniman (Force) 3. Ben Afeaki (Chiefs) 2. Hikawera Elliott (Chiefs) 1. Benn Robinson (Waratahs).
Bok Barometer for week three:
15. Louis Ludik (Sharks) 14. JP Pietersen (Sharks) 13. Jean de Villiers (Stormers) 12. Francois Steyn (Sharks) 11. Bjorn Basson (Bulls) 10. Pat Lambie (Sharks) 9. Francois Hougaard (Bulls) 8. Duane Vermeulen (Stormers) 7. Jean Deysel (Sharks) 6. Arno Botha (Bulls) 5. Andries Bekker (Stormers) 4. Anton Bresler (Sharks) 3. Werner Kruger (Bulls) 2. Chiliboy Ralepelle (Bulls) 1. Tendai Mtwarira (Sharks).
Match of the week:
In the opening week they threatened but last week the Blues confirmed that they could be realistic title contenders as they shocked the Crusaders 34-15, outscoring them five tries to nil in the process.
Under the tutelage of John Kirwan and Graham Henry performances of this magnitude could become a regular occurrence this year, and the Bulls will be slightly worried before their tour opener in Auckland on Sunday.
To see why, watch this:
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