Ken Borland

The Sharks made a painfully slow start to their Rainbow Cup match against the Stormers in Cape Town at the weekend, which did not please coach Sean Everitt at all, but he was happy that his team showed the character to win in the end.

The Sharks were 17-0 down after 12 minutes but eventually triumphed 33-30 and were helped by the Stormers having to play with 14 men for 40 minutes due to two red cards (with replacements allowed after 20 minutes under the new trial laws) and 13 men for 10 minutes. The first of those red cards came in the 13^th minute when wing Seabelo Senatla clumsily upended fullback Aphelele Fassi in the air.

“Obviously we’re not happy with the performance but we’ll take the result and I guess it’s the sign of a good team that you can win when you haven’t played well. Thanks to our conditioning I thought we did really well at the end, especially in stopping their driving mauls. In the last 20 minutes we just could not get out of our 22, we just didn’t have possession.

“It was not the performance we wanted, but the positive is that the guys showed character, work-rate and effort. What was really pleasing is that we are not a team that gives up. The guys found a way to win and at times we moved the ball really nicely. We knew it would be an uphill battle against the Stormers with all their Springboks, but we need to be better,” was Everitt’s frank assessment after the game.

The hard slog for the Sharks began in the lineouts and they also conceded too many penalties. But the new trial laws allowing the Stormers to replace their red-carded players after 20 minutes most certainly kept the home side in the game. Although the new rules made his life harder, Everitt said he supported the change in regulations.

“It’s always tough for the spectacle when there’s an early red card and what Senatla did was not intentional, probably just careless, it was not malicious at all. Fortunately Aphelele was not injured. I think it’s a good idea that a team can change their red-carded players after 20 minutes,” Everitt said.

Bulls coach Jake White wants his team to be flexible and so he was satisfied that they were able to ‘win ugly’ in their opening Rainbow Cup match against the Lions at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.

White had before the game promised an attacking approach if conditions were dry, and the Bulls started superbly, keeping ball in hand for two minutes from the kickoff and then scoring the opening try. But thereafter they were constrained by a watertight, rapidly approaching Lions defence and the soft underfoot conditions, only managing to cross the tryline again in the 66^th and 80^th minutes for a 22-9 win.

The victory and a bonus point would also have been in the bag much earlier if the Bulls hadn’t had three tries disallowed due to captain’s referrals.

“Sometimes you’ve got to win these sort of games and we found a way to win. The Lions were very good at the breakdown, they tried to slow us down all the time. To have four tries disallowed – I think the yellow card for a deliberate knock-on could maybe have been a penalty try – was helluva frustrating because you keep thinking you’ve put a bit of distance between you and the opposition.

“But we know everyone will be coming for us because we’ve won the last two trophies and today we had to vasbyt for the win. We started so well and we were probably seduced a bit by that, the players maybe thought it was like a training run. But then the Lions had so many players in the line … if we had turned them around more with little kicks then we could have found a bit more space behind them,” White said after the Bulls’ 13^th successive win at home.

The Bulls dominated possession but at times they suffered from the rugby equivalent of bulimia – having an over-abundance of ball and generally keeping it in hand meant they also coughed up a lot of possession as the Lions dominated the breakdowns.

“We will work on not being sucked into playing too much rugby, sometimes we need to be a bit smarter. But we did end up playing into the wind in both halves because the wind turned … it was a bit extraordinary, something we’re not used to here. But it’s exciting times with guys like Elrigh Louw and Janko Swanepoel just out of the U21s, Mornay Smith is a young tighthead, Joe van Zyl, Stravino Jacobs and David Kriel are all young.

“But if you have too many youngsters then they can start to panic, so it’s nice for them to learn from the seniors exactly how to close off a game. I told the bench before the match that I was looking for composure at the end, for them to show maturity, and I was satisfied that they did. Lizo Gqoboka, Arno Botha and Morne Steyn are all Springboks, Jacques van Rooyen is very experienced, and it showed,” White said.

The Bulls may have scored as early as the second minute, but for more than an hour they then struggled to go around or get through a ferocious Lions defence, eventually battling to a 22-9 win in their Rainbow Cup match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.

The Bulls began superbly, retaining possession from the kickoff for two minutes before flyhalf Chris Smith jinked and slipped though some tackles to score the opening try. Thereafter, however, the Bulls found themselves in a tremendous tussle, struggling to cope with the Lions’ line-speed in defence and their aggressive targeting of the breakdowns.

Only once in the whole game was there a short kick over the top of the rapidly advancing Lions defence and it nearly resulted in centre Cornal Hendricks scoring. But the Bulls did not use that tactic or the grubber nearly enough. And for all their possession, the Lions were dominant at the breakdowns so it almost always came to nothing.

Smith added a penalty to the conversion of his try and Lions flyhalf Fred Zeilinga kicked two penalties as the Bulls went into halftime 10-6 ahead. The Lions made a good start to the second half, allowing Zeilinga to close the gap to just one point with another penalty in the  44^th minute.

The final quarter belonged to the Bulls though as they camped in the Lions half. After 10 minutes in the 22 they eventually broke through, helped by EW Viljoen’s yellow card for a deliberate knock-on, when replacement prop Lizo Gqoboka won a turnover to win a penalty, and then produced a mini-break before offloading to substitute scrumhalf Zak Burger to race over under the poles for the matchwinning try.

The never-say-die Lions were better than the final scoreline suggested, conceding a try right at the death as flank Elrigh Louw powered through several tackles to score. Hendricks had fought hard on the gainline in the build-up, before offloading to Burger, who darted well and then found Louw with a neat offload.

But the Bulls will point to having three tries disallowed by the TMO and the soft underfoot conditions as having put paid to their more ambitious plans.

Scorers

Bulls: Tries – Chris Smith, Zak Burger, Elrigh Louw. Conversions – Smith, Morne Steyn. Penalty – Smith.

Lions: Penalties – Fred Zeilinga (3).

Tens of thousands of people will probably die tragically of Covid in India over the next week, which should give all South African sports fans pause to think as we clamour for the return of spectators to stadiums.

The daily death toll from the pandemic climbed to over 3600 in India this week, with at least 300 000 positive tests per day.

Having been to India three times, it is the country that most reminds me of our poorer communities, the places at the wrong end of the most unequal society in the world, and I cannot but imagine what might happen here if another wave of Covid strikes during winter.

The sudden resurgence of Covid in India has been partly attributed to the government allowing a series of mass nationalistic or religious gatherings, that rapidly became super-spreader events in the populous country.

So one can understand government’s caution when it comes to allowing spectators back into stadiums for rugby or football or any other sporting event. I thought Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa gave a very reasonable explanation on Friday for why there has been no date set yet for the return of fans.

“In terms of fans, we have to look at the codes’ plans from a health perspective. It’s not up to the Minister of Sport, we are not going to decide as individual departments. The National Command Council weekly meeting guides society as a whole, not just one aspect. Our medical advisors are telling us that between May and July there is the possibility of a third wave.

“They say we are facing a storm and we can’t just kill people by allowing them back into stadiums. So each sport has to put together a plan. For example rugby has proposed 50% capacity for the British and Irish Lions tour, which will be looked into. But if the FNB Stadium has capacity of 90 000, that means 45 000 people and how do we ensure that does not become a super-spreader event?” Mthethwa said.

Of course all rugby fans want crowds to be able to watch the Lions matches and recreate the sort of atmosphere that electrified proceedings when Tendai Mtawarira began dismantling the legendary Phil Vickery in the scrums at Kings Park or when Jaque Fourie squeezed over for his improbable try at Loftus Versfeld the last time Britain and Ireland’s finest toured here in 2009.

But is it worth tens of thousands of people dying? Even though SA Rugby’s budget will take a severe knock without crowds, it is not worth mass mortalities.

I would postulate that once spectators are allowed at sporting events again, they will return in their flocks because of how long they have been starved of live action. Perhaps club rugby, generally played in wide open areas, would be a good place to start safely bringing crowds back?

And club rugby will be returning shortly.

It is a level of the game that has been treated quite curtly by some professional coaches, but it was pleasing to hear Bulls coach Jake White, ever the traditionalist, say he will be keeping an eye on club rugby in the Pretoria region to see if there are any hidden gems who have the aptitude for franchise rugby.

He has shown his backing for club rugby by allocating each of his 45 contracted professional players to a club and, if they are not selected for the Bulls, they are expected to play for their clubs (although this won’t apply to the Springboks). White has made a rule that players will wear their club socks once a week at Bulls training and once a month they will come to Loftus Versfeld in their club kit, as well as actually go to their clubs periodically to help with training or social functions.

Resurrecting club rugby as a factory for the professional game would be a great gift for rugby in this country.