Article appearing in Supersport by Gavin Rich.
Beeno and Gavin on the same apge it seems!
The feeling that went through me after the Currie Cup final was freakily similar to how I felt after the corresponding game last year.
In 2012 it was hard not to lean towards the Sharks as they had won the league phase of the competition with ease and it just felt right that they should win the trophy. So when they failed to finish off their season with the silverware that their effort deserved, there was disappointment.
But there was also pleasure for Western Province, who by travelling for the final and comprehensively winning the game that mattered most, proved themselves worthy champions. The same can be said of this past weekend. If you count their last five Super Rugby matches, the Cape’s premier team had gone 16 games without defeat. You would feel that sort of effort deserves some reward.
However, as had been the case the previous season, the other team in the final ended up winning the Cup, and they completed their task so comprehensively, and were so clearly the better side on the day, that it was hard not to feel pleased for the Sharks’ achievement.
Previous coach John Plumtree did enjoy a lot of domestic success with the Sharks. That they hosted the final last year and also in 2010 was because he got a side denuded of Springboks to the top spot on the log in those seasons. He also did it in 2008 when they won the Cup for the first time after a 12-year break, and in 2009 when they were shocked by the Cheetahs in the semifinals.
So it wasn’t as if the Sharks this past weekend broke through into new territory, and before the final I wrote that the extent to which WP were being made the favourites was crazy. At home Province were rightly favourites, but with their Springboks back, the Sharks were capable of winning if they played well.
It was a massive achievement though for the Sharks to win the Currie Cup just four months after the upheaval that beset that union when both the previous chief executive and coach were unloaded, and skipper Keegan Daniel spoke at the post-match press conference about the culture change.
The Sharks won many games during the under-strength phase that they could well have lost, and they recovered well from the disturbing opening home defeat to Griquas. You could see then that the players were playing for each other and their coaches, and there was a noticeable refusal to lose.
The same held for WP, who won several close games and were clearly throwing everything into their quest to end the season unbeaten. But where they fell short was that on the decisive day of the season they were out-coached and out-strategised by the heavyweight tactical brain in the opposition coach's box.
I wrote near the start of the year, when the Stormers were struggling to decide what approach to adopt in their Super Rugby campaign, that the WP union should possibly add expertise to their coaching group by recruiting Brendan Venter as a technical adviser or as a director of rugby.
When Rassie Erasmus departed the scene at Province, he left a gap that was always going to be hard to fill, and yet in Venter, who lives in the Cape and I know always had a strong passion for WP rugby before being recruited by the Sharks, they had someone who could bring similar gravitas to the planning.
There is not a lot wrong with the WP coaching staff and I haven’t tended to be one who calls for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater every time the team loses a big game. Province has had a remarkable run since the end of May.
But those were mostly just Currie Cup games, and you could argue that the systems Erasmus put in place at WP when he was effectively director of rugby would sustain a period of success. The victory by the WP under-21 side in the age-group final against a Bulls team loaded with Currie Cup players is a sign that the pipeline at Province is working, and while there were many young players bled into the WP senior side in the domestic season, they also had a core of experienced players to build around.
In other words, you would have expected WP to do well in the under-strength phase, and there weren’t many who argued against my pre-season contention that they should finish top of the log. It is also true to some extent, or so I thought, that the monkey was shaken off their back when they won the Cup as underdogs last season.
But maybe we should think again about that, for that word “underdog” might be significant. There was no expectation in last year’s final. The barrier that this past Saturday showed they have yet to break through is the one of winning a big play-off game when they should be expected to.
There have been mitigating circumstances in some play-off games, such as injuries, but it is also true that the Stormers/WP have consistently been unable to play the sort of rugby that needs to be played in finals, and they have been outwitted in the coaching box as much as they have been outplayed on the field.
To go to the next level, WP needs to recognise that Erasmus does need to be replaced. I know Gert Smal is on the WP radar as a possible director of rugby, but he is not available immediately. There is a doctor based in the Strand who was instrumental in winning a Currie Cup for the Sharks who knows he will not be used by Jake White but has said that he is just a phone call away if the new Sharks director wants advice.
He is also just a phone call away for WP. Indeed, if they want to talk to him about a possible role at Province, the administrators could pop in personally to his medical practice. And that is what they need to do if they want their union to take the next step. Venter has the one ingredient that is still missing.
Beeno of course has punted Venter for years now and again has been proven to be spot on. Take a bow Beeno!
Hey rooitwit dont you wish you had such a fine grasp of rugby matters! Ditto saSUE and Hakwa and JW and all the kwi bird brains! Bwahhaahhahahahaha ou maaaike is of course amazed.
