Ken Borland

The Bulls really came to the party after halftime in their Super Rugby Unlocked match at Ellis Park against what Jake White described as a ‘spoiling’ Lions side, the coach saying their 30-25 win was a fantastic result for the log-leaders.

While the Bulls started well, the Lions dominated the second quarter and led 15-10 at the break, dominating the scrums and just generally showing more urgency. But the Bulls, no doubt after a tongue-lashing from White, raised the intensity in the third quarter and opened up a 23-15 lead going into the last 20 minutes. From there the Bulls kept their cool and held off a Lions side that could be proud of their tremendous effort.

“It’s always tough to win away from home and that was a fantastic away win. I was really proud of the second-half performance – after a lot of disruptions having to change our hooker on Thursday and then losing both props, plus a flank in the first five minutes – for the other guys to produce 40 minutes like that when they haven’t had much time together as a unit was phenomenal.

“It was a tough game, but sometimes you have to win ugly. After halftime we were a different team, I demanded a response during the break and they delivered. I hope it’s not like this every week though because you want the team to show a bit of drive from inside as well. We were poor in the first half but we played really well in the second half. And we’ve won every second half this season which is nice conditioning-wise,” White said after the game.

White is one of the most meticulous planners in South African rugby and he was delighted that his team managed to subdue the ferocious challenge the Lions threw at them, at the breakdowns in particular.

“I’m very happy with the breakdowns based on the back row the Lions chose, because they clearly wanted to spoil and make the game scrappy. They were probably a bit fortunate to not have the lawbook used against them more, at one stage there were five ruck infringements in a row. Their goal was to break our rhythm and they did that quite well, plus we had no real go-forward in the set-pieces.

“Our maul was quite good but we are still a work in progress. But it was nice to play both games, using both the pack and the backs, and it looked like we got the balance right in the end. If the backs can play like that when we don’t have forward dominance, then they’ll have gained a lot of confidence for the games ahead. The Lions tried to make the whole game slow and scrappy and we just couldn’t get our rhythm until the second half,” White said.

Judging by their error-strewn performance in beating the Free State Cheetahs 19-13 at Kings Park on Friday night, the Sharks will be fortunate to lick the rim of the Super Rugby Unlocked trophy let alone drink from the cup.

There victory had much to do with how dire the Cheetahs also were, and the boot of flyhalf Curwin Bosch, who slotted all five of his kicks at goal and also provided the pinpoint crosskick for the matchwinning try by replacement wing Madosh Tambwe.

While the Cheetahs at least had the excuse of not having played for a couple of weeks, the Men in Black will be very disappointed with their performance and relieved to have won. Never mind the fancy stuff, the Sharks battled with the basics of scrumming and passing, which meant their game was seriously lacking in continuity.

The Sharks were not direct enough and also failed to build an innings. There was also some odd decision-making as they turned down four shots at goal to kick for the corner, messed up those chances, but then finally went for poles in the 33^rd minute, Bosch putting them 3-0 up.

Then, with the Cheetahs missing a lock thanks to Carl Wegner’s yellow card, they went for goal again after the halftime hooter, Bosch succeeding from 45 metres. But with the opposition missing a tight forward, it might have been the right time to try and set the maul.

The Sharks’ kicking game has long been their strength, and Bosch’s towering up-and-unders did cause serious problems for the Cheetahs. Centre Jeremy Ward did cross the line in the 52^nd minute, but the TMO ruled that fullback Manie Libbok had interfered illegally with centre Chris Smit’s attempt to catch the ball, so the try was disallowed. It was typical of the ill-discipline that plagued the Sharks on Friday night.

The Sharks scrum, especially without Thomas du Toit at tighthead, has been cause for concern and the Cheetahs definitely had the edge in that set-piece. Another solid scrum in the 71^st minute put them on the front foot, from where flyhalf Tian Schoeman sent wing William Small-Smith slicing through to score the opening try. Replays showed the pass was forward, however, but it’s not the first time the use of the TMO has been ignored.

Fortunately it did not cost the Sharks the match though, as Free State wing Rosko Specman was yellow-carded for a deliberate knock-on three minutes later. After kicking into the corner, Bosch then produced the field kick that overturned the 13-9 deficit, before adding a phenomenal 59-mtre penalty to seal the win.

Scorers

Sharks: Try – Madosh Tambwe. Conversion – Curwin Bosch. Penalties –Bosch (4).

Free State Cheetahs: Try – William Small-Smith. Conversion – Tian Schoeman. Penalty – Schoeman (2).

Coach Jake White says he is pleasantly surprised by how quickly his Bulls side have learnt how to vary their play and believes it could be an especially important quality when they come up against the Lions in their Super Rugby Unlocked match at Ellis Park on Saturday night.

Far from just playing forward-based rugby with a strong kicking game – traditional Bulls’ 10-man rugby – White’s Bulls have been one of the hottest attacking sides in the competition, beating the most defenders so far, fullback David Kriel has run the most metres and they have scored the most tries (15) with outside centre Stedman Gans the joint leading try-scorer along with Neil Maritz of the Pumas with four.

“I’m not surprised by the style of rugby we’re playing because we want to use our backs as well, but I am surprised that in a relatively short space of time the team has been able to get like that. The excitement for me is not being labelled as a conservative Afrikaans coach using a big pack and just kicking. We’ve now got the forwards who can go through the opposition and the backs who can go around them.

“I’ve coached all over the world now and I’ve taken the best of different countries and tried to use it with the Bulls. We have massive talent here and we can play different styles of rugby. The Lions also do quite a lot of unexpected things, the way they kick, the way they attack and run out of their own half. They’re not stereotypical and they like to have quick rucks and move the ball around, they have the most passes and offloads of all the teams,” White said.

With the crowd at Ellis Park muffled by the Covid-19 restrictions and the Bulls accustomed to playing at altitude, two of the Lions’ key weapons have been removed. White also believes that their narrow defeat to the Free State Cheetahs three weeks ago in Bloemfontein has given them a template for how to beat the Lions.

“We had a great trial run against the Cheetahs, who are the same sort of team, and we know what went wrong then. We did everything right to win the game but we just didn’t take our chances. We played too much rugby in certain areas and sometimes when we needed to play, we kicked the ball away or a lineout throw went skew or we went left instead of right.

“Our cohesion wasn’t as well-oiled as it is now and we will ask different questions of the Lions. It’s not just bashing away with the forwards until they’re exhausted, we have backs who can break and score from their own line, we have one of the best flyhalves when it comes to kicking out of hand, and an aerial battle will suit us too with Travis Ismaiel and David Kriel both being nearly two metres tall.

“We’re confident we have all the bases covered and there’s nothing the Lions will do that we weren’t already challenged by against the Cheetahs. Plus the Lions have struggled this year, only winning two of their 11 matches, while Free State are the Currie Cup champions and have changed the way they attack and play considerably,” White said.

Rugby is a much-changed landscape from a year ago and one of the most positive aspects of this new age for South African rugby is that the Currie Cup looks set to return to being the top-class competition it once was.

By signing a naming rights sponsor like Carling Black Label, SA Rugby are pretty much ensuring that the oldest provincial competition in the sport, and surely one of the most-loved, is returned to the fans, such is the reputation of the biggest-selling beer brand in the country. Carling Black Label has a history of really focusing on fan participation, they are extremely innovative in that space and they are a brand of the people.

“We want to make the Currie Cup more accessible, more democratic in a way. Take the Eastern Cape for example, to be able to give rugby back to that region excites me and if ever there was a time to grow the game in that area then it is now. We want to give a voice to the fans, we want to bring them on board.

“Our dream is to explode the Currie Cup back into the forefront, back to its rightful place – it should be the premier provincial tournament in the world. How do we do local rugby in a new way? We’re not just there to put our brand up, we want to acknowledge the fans and bring their passion to the game. We want to bring the Currie Cup to life and closer to the fans,” brand director Arne Rust told me at the launch of their sponsorship this week at Melrose Arch.

The Currie Cup is a prime property in SA Rugby’s stable, probably second only in value to the Springboks, so it is great that the disentanglement from Super Rugby and the move to Europe has allowed for some much-needed attention to be paid to the competition.

Where SA Rugby and SA Breweries are getting it right is in realising that the customer is their primary stakeholder and in rugby’s case, their customer is ultimately the fan, whether watching on TV or (hopefully one day soon) at the ground.

Unfortunately, as has so often been the case recently, Cricket South Africa are being shown up badly by their counterparts in the sports business.

This week saw the much-anticipated return-to-play, after an eight-month Covid-enforced break, of the country’s leading cricketers as the Four-Day Franchise Series kicked off the new season. But this momentous occasion may as well have happened in a black hole, such was the lack of fanfare from CSA.

Firstly, no spectators were allowed, which is possibly a decision that is out of their hands due to Covid safety measures. But it does seem ridiculous considering people can mix and misbehave in shopping centres, pubs and clubs quite legally, while a cricket field situated in the great outdoors with plenty of space for social distancing in the stands or on the grass banks is illegal.

But where CSA really dropped the ball was in ensuring the publc who wanted to follow the games could keep track of what was happening. Unlike most other Test-playing nations, there is no live-streaming option for our four-day cricket, which is a story all in itself.

But even trying to find the location of live scores for the matches was almost a mission impossible. That’s because CSA, in their wisdom, have sold the rights to all their match data, including the scores, to the overseas company Opta.

The idea was that other outlets would then buy the scores from Opta, but competitively it has been a disaster with just about nobody willing to do that. Unsurprisingly, because shouldn’t scores be in the public domain anyway? You would think CSA would want as much publicity for the game as possible …

But like the company that priced itself out of its market and went bankrupt, CSA, who need as many supporters as they can get given how poor their image is, once again sent the message that they actually don’t care about their fans. “You’re interested in the cricket, well we’ve made it as hard as possible for you to follow it,” seems to be their attitude.

It was heartening, however, that in their first meeting, the new interim board made a point of noting this unsatisfactory situation and they have tasked Judith February, who is well-versed in the media, to investigate the capacity and competency in CSA to deal with their stakeholders.