WP Not ‘good enough’ for title
October 15 2012 at 12:30pm
By Ashfak Mohamed
Gallo Images
Western Province will face the Lions in the Currie Cup semi-finals.
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Cape Town – Western Province last won the Currie Cup in 2001, and last contested the final in 2010. But captain Jean de Villiers believes that his team are “good enough” to win the title this year.
Province, bolstered by seven returning Springboks, secured a semi-final berth against the Lions in Johannesburg on Saturday (7pm kickoff) by beating the Cheetahs 36-15 at Newlands at the weekend.
But now the defending champions lie in wait, and they won’t be overawed, like the Cheetahs were, by the power of the Boks in the Province team, having toppled a Bok-laden WP side 29-20 in last year’s semi-final at Coca-Cola Park.
De Villiers said that he hasn’t won a senior title with WP since making his Currie Cup debut in 2002, and is determined to set that record straight over the next two weeks.
“I haven’t won anything here, but the drive is still there to hopefully help this team win something. And it’s not about me – it’s about giving the youngsters some reward for what they’ve gone through, showing them that this team is good enough to win something,” the Springbok captain said after the Cheetahs game.
“And we are – we are good enough. I think it’s a good-enough team, and we’ve got fantastic individuals within the system. For me, the reward would be great to see them rewarded for a massive effort and just for being great guys. If I can be part of that, I would enjoy it.”
But Province will still be thinking about last year’s semi-final defeat to the Lions, which came just after the Boks were dumped out of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand by the Wallabies. It was an Elton Jantjies-inspired Lions who knocked over the fancied WP side, the flyhalf slotting five penalties and two conversions for a personal points tally of 19 as ill-discipline and a lack of physicality cost the Cape side.
Flank Derick Minnie was also a dominant presence on the ground and around the field that day, but De Villiers said that WP won’t stand back this weekend. “It’s definitely pleasing to put up a performance that is not too bad (against the Cheetahs).
“I think we mustn’t fool ourselves – it wasn’t a performance that we will remember in years to come. It was a good performance, but there is still a lot of hard work to be done for us,” he said.
“Next week, we’ll be up against a team who have really performed well in the Currie Cup. The Lions have showed that they are good at the Currie Cup – they are like the Cheetahs a couple of years ago. They know how to play in and win Currie Cups. It will be a tough battle up there. We made the mistake last year and didn’t get the result. We know it's going to be tough, but it’s one we’re looking forward to.”
WP do possess some fantastic individuals, as De Villiers said, and they played some terrific rugby at times against the Cheetahs. Boks Eben Etzebeth, Andries Bekker and Duane Vermeulen were complemented by the energy of openside flank Deon Fourie, while De Villiers himself, as well as star wing Bryan Habana, had busy games.
The 2.04m Etzebeth was a giant in the loose on his Currie Cup debut, showing no ill-effects of the long Test season. He carried the ball mightily over the advantage line by barging would-be tacklers out of the way, and put in some damaging hits on defence. He also won a few lineouts and was handed the Man-of-the-Match award.
But the backs missed a few opportunities to finish off, and made a couple of handling errors on attack. WP coach Allister Coetzee called on his backs to be more ruthless against the Lions. “Here and there, we lacked a bit of accuracy and composure on attack. We needed to build one more phase and could probably have walked over for the next one. There’s still a lot we can get right,” he said.
“We have to make sure that we exit well and get out of our half more efficiently at times. The last two Cheetahs tries probably came because we played out of system.”
Coetzee was satisfied with the scrumming performance and the clean ball won in the lineouts. Another week for the Boks to settle in, though, will also improve WP’s efficiency.
“It’s important to go into the knockout stage with confidence in your set pieces. We scrummed particularly well, and our lineout was a big step-up from our performance against the Bulls. That’s what you need to get right in playoffs,” he said. “I think we found each other in this game.”
Bok lock Bekker (toe) was the only injury concern and went for X-rays, but he is expected to be ready to play on Saturday. “Andries will be assessed again tomorrow, but he should be fine,” Coetzee told the Cape Times yesterday.
Wing Gio Aplon should also be back in the starting line-up for the semi-final after returning from an ankle injury off the bench against the Cheetahs.
Saturday
Durban: Sharks v Blue Bulls (4.30pm kickoff). Johannesburg: Lions v Western Province (7pm). – Cape Times
