Ken Borland

Many male rugby fans will know the feeling of the wife complaining about their being too much rugby over the weekend, but Bulls coach Jake White certainly seems to have a legitimate complaint when he expressed his concern over all the different demands on his players that will happen next month.

The Bulls, starting with their match against the Lions on Saturday, have three rounds of Rainbow Cup SA games left and, with them sitting top of the log at the moment, they will have their eyes on the final against the winners of the Pro14 in Europe on June 19. But they could also have to play in the Currie Cup that weekend, and it is likely that the Springboks could be in camp as well.

“I know a request has been made for us to be allowed to make our squads bigger than the player cap of 45, and that’s from all four unions, not just the Bulls. If we play in the Rainbow Cup final on June 19, we could also have a Currie Cup game and the Boks could be out too. The U20s also have a competition starting. But we’re only allowed 45 players so I’m not sure what we can do, can we choose club players?

“We’re waiting to hear from SA Rugby, but we’re all in the same boat. In fact, the Sharks could have 10-12 plays in the Springbok camp, so I’m not sure how they would pick two full teams. But as a coach I want to produce Springboks, I want guys like Cornal Henricks, Stedman Gans and Elrigh Louw to play for the Boks and the list goes on,” White said on Friday.

The quandary requires some nifty selecting and player management, and the elevation of Chris Smith to the position of starting flyhalf against the Lions, with Morne Steyn being rested, is an obvious example of this. White has given Smith plenty of game time in the last year and the 26-year-old has shown he has the qualities and temperament of a top franchise player.

“Even with Morne playing so well, we realise we are not going to have him forever and part of the plan is to groom the next flyhalf. If we lose Morne to an extended Springbok squad then we have to play Chris. He has come on in some pressure games and played very well. He’s got the talent, he plays quickly and he has a great passing game. There’s no panic, he’s started enough times.

“It’s good for him to get some game-time now and he has grown in the last year. Every practice he plays against Morne, so he can see what makes him different. But Chris has got something different too and he’s the No.2 flyhalf that has played the most out of all the franchise 10s. So we have a lot of faith in him, we’re ready to get the best out of him,” White said.

Bulls team: David Kriel, Madosh Tambwe, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Cornal Hendricks, James Verity-Amm, Chris Smith, Embrose Papier, Duane Vermeulen (C), Elrigh Louw, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Trevor Nyakane, Johan Grobbelaar, Lizo Gqoboka. Bench – Schalk Erasmus, Gerhard Steenekamp, Mornay Smith, Janko Swanepoel, Nizaam Carr, Zak Burger, Clinton Swart, Stravino Jacobs.

The Springboks face a hectic 2021 schedule in which their world champion status will undoubtedly be closely scrutinised, while our four franchises will need to prove they are top-class teams when they make a first foray into Europe.

Unsurprisingly (given how often it has happened through the years), there has already been plenty of dissing of the Springboks, even though they have not been able to play a game since that heady triumph in Yokahama. They will get their chance to prove their mettle soon, with nine Tests to be played between July 3 and October 2.

That includes an epic series against the British and Irish Lions and four Tests in Australasia, where South Africa have just three wins against their hosts in the last decade.

With the relationship with Sanzaar starting to get a bit old and tired, accompanied by not unexpected bickering, there has been a great deal of excitement over SA Rugby’s moves into Europe. That relationship is still new and there is still some wooing to be done before we can say we’ve scored a try, so to speak, but it did come as a shock when the Director General of European Professional Club Rugby, Vincent Gaillard, was rather dismissive of South Africa this week.

For South African rugby’s move to the northern hemisphere to be successful in the long run, they have to be playing at the highest level of European club rugby, which is the Champions Cup. SA Rugby have been negotiating on the basis that their teams can qualify for the Champions Cup through their performances in the Pro16, just like the leading teams of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy.

But this week, Gaillard was quoted by international news agency AFP as saying: “There will be no South African clubs in the European Cup next season, that’s for sure. In the Challenge Cup, theoretically, it is possible. We are looking at the possibility, but it is quite unlikely. There are details to settle, especially at the Pro16 level.”

In the same breath, Gaillard announced that EPCR had signed a new deal with the countries involved that would run through until at least 2030 and would see the competition include 24 teams in two pools of 12. How can they make such long-term plans without even considering the involvement of their new partners, who just happen to be world champions?

Fortunately, Martyn Hindley, the EPCR communications director, confirmed on Friday that their competition formats “remain under discussion”.

But these days all professional rugby revolves around the financial bottom line and the only way for our franchises to assure themselves of a place in the elite European competitions is by proving that their involvement would be of great service to their game.

If our franchises, fielding global drawcards such as Lukhanyo Am and Siya Kolisi, Duane Vermeulen and Marcell Coetzee, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Steven Kitshoff, and some really exciting young Lions players like Wandisile Simelane, can produce rugby of sufficient quality then they can make themselves indispensable. If their market value is high enough, then the Champions Cup will be clamouring to get them involved.

So when the winners of our local Rainbow Cup competition travel to Europe to play their champions of the same Pro-14 based league on June 19, it is going to be vital for them to put up a great showing. If our best are not going to be dominating the Pro16, then there is not going to be much incentive to get them involved in the proper European tournaments.

But I am going to go out on a limb and say I expect our teams to do very well in Europe. There have been critics of our domestic standard over the last year, but there have also been definite mitigating factors, due to Covid, for some of the uninspired rugby.

But having watched matches from both sides of the equator over the last few weeks, I think the physicality, intensity and tempo of our teams is going to really trouble their European opponents.

They were the qualities that took the Springboks to World Cup glory and hopefully they are going to take our franchises to the top table in Europe as well.

Every Sharks supporter adores the energy and cutting-edge skill Makazole Mapimpi brings to the side, but the World Cup star will sit out for another couple of weeks following his return from Japan as he was not named on Thursday in the squad for Saturday’s Rainbow Cup match against the Stormers at Kings Park.

Mapimpi has been on loan to Johan Ackermann’s NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes side for more than a year, helping them to the Top League quarterfinals, and returned to Durban last week. Sharks coach Sean Everitt is delighted to have his ace finisher back, but explained on Thursday why he is not rushing him back into action just yet.

“Makazole has been amazing for us both on and off the field, it’s a pleasure to have him back, and he’s always in good nick conditioning-wise. But he hasn’t trained much with the team yet and a full week’s training will do him good. We have a bye next week when the Springboks will be away at their alignment camp, and then he will be up for selection for us the following week when we travel to the Lions.

“He said he really enjoyed the experience in Japan, he’s someone who likes to learn, he prides himself on learning something new every day. So it was enriching for him and he has come back with some really good ideas. He said there are only slight differences in detail to what they were doing in Japan. But he’s shared a lot of info with us, different coaches bring different things and he learnt a lot playing with TJ Perenara,” Everitt said.

But while the Sharks have welcomed back one Springbok in Mapimpi, they have lost another in loose forward Sikhumbuzo Notshe, who had surgery this week on a ruptured patella tendon and will unfortunately be out for several months. Henco Venter will move to eighthman, with Thembelani Bholi taking the number seven jersey.

While Everitt said it will not change their attacking shape, the hard-grinding Venter is clearly an eighthman in different clothing to the more expansive, linking Notshe.

“It’s devastating for Sikhumbuzo because he was a form No.8 and would probably have gone with Duane Vermeulen to the Springboks for the Lions series, but he’s in a positive space after successful surgery. He will unfortunately be out for a while.

“We have lots of options at eight, Phepsi Buthelezi has done the job there before, Siya Kolisi plays eighthman as well. But we just felt Henco is more suited to how we want to play, we need a more experienced team against a very experienced Stormers pack,” Everitt explained.

Sharks team: Aphelele Fassi, Sbu Nkosi, Lukhanyo Am (C), Marius Louw, Yaw Penxe, Curwin Bosch, Jaden Hendrikse, Henco Venter, Thembelani Bholi, Siya Kolisi, Reniel Hugo, JJ van der Mescht, Thomas du Toit, Fez Mbatha, Ox Nche. Bench – Kerron van Vuuren, Ntuthuko Mchunu, Wiehahn Herbst, Ruben van Heerden, Phepsi Buthelezi, Sanele Nohamba, Manie Libbok, Werner Kok.

It is not that surprising to see young Bulls lock Walt Steenkamp playing with extreme vigour in the Rainbow Cup, given that the 25-year-old came down with Covid at the end of last year, which then affected his heart, meaning he only returned to the field three weeks ago.

Steenkamp came down with a particularly virulent but rare strain of the Covid-19 virus that attacks the heart muscle, leaving him with arrhythmia, a condition in which his heart-rate struggles to return to normal after exercise. It actually required surgery in which the misfiring electrical signals are corrected.

“After five months of not playing it’s lovely to be back and playing in a winning team again. But it was quite heavy going through that, I will take nothing for granted again when it comes to playing rugby, it was a big fright. Fortunately the doctors never said I would definitely have to give up rugby, so I always believed I would come back.

“I actually had to have the operation twice, it’s called an ablation – they insert catheters that destroy the tissue that’s causing the abnormal heart signals, turn it into scar tissue. I had just 20% heart function before the operations but it’s all perfect now. And I really value being back in the lovely culture of this team,” Steenkamp said this week.

The former Free State Cheetahs and North-West Leopards star has made a big impact since joining the Bulls last November and has made some major plays, especially a crucial lineout steal five metres from their own line against the Sharks when the Bulls had just gone 19-9 up last weekend. Steenkamp clearly has a big engine, he is mobile but also a big-hitter in the physical exchanges.

But even as a relative youngster, Steenkamp has noticed how the game of rugby is changing, which presents fresh challenges, especially in terms of adapting to the new way tackles are being refereed, which many people consider a cancer in the game.

“Rugby has changed a lot, but Jake White is a mastermind, he knows what it takes to win and we’re doing the right things at the moment. The rules now make it harder to do what locks used to do. There’s more focus on fitness now and we have to be more careful, especially when it comes to tackles,” Steenkamp said.