Ken Borland

The Eastern Province Kings team played with white armbands in their Currie Cup match against the Blue Bulls in Pretoria over the weekend to support their fellow players and the coaching staff who have not been paid for a month, captain Tim Whitehead revealed after the match.

“We were wearing white armbands because only the 22 who played in this game have been paid and we wanted show our support for the coaching staff and the non-playing members of the squad who haven’t been paid for over a month,” Whitehead announced, unprompted, at the post-match press conference.

The Kings produced a superb first half before ultimately being beaten 48-27 by the Bulls.

The Kings team began the Currie Cup campaign having not been paid for months and went on a mini-strike in August as they had still not received their due money. The crisis continued in September but less than a week ago, the Aveng group were announced as new sponsors of the Kings.

But it is more than two months since EP Rugby president Cheeky Watson announced that the signing of “possibly the biggest sponsorship partnership for any franchise this country has ever seen” was “imminent”.

Nollis Marais was confirmed as the Bulls’ SuperRugby coach for the next four years over the weekend and he said he will continue with the enterprising new style of rugby he has introduced in the Currie Cup and which has taken the Blue Bulls to the brink of a home semi-final.

“Of course we will need to be more accurate in SuperRugby, but we’ll have more time to prepare than we did for the Currie Cup. We will change one or two things in the three months we have pre-season and there’s still a lot of improvement needed,” Marais said.

“It’s a huge surprise to be appointed because I only applied on the second-last day, but I’d like to thank my captain [Lappies Labuschagne] and the support of the fans and players because their backing is what got me appointed. I know there will be a lot of challenges and we have a lot to improve on for SuperRugby,” the 43-year-old said.

Bulls CEO Barend van Graan described Marais as “fearless” and a “straightshooter” who has “turned the tide at Loftus Versfeld”.

“He knows the players and understands them and they have adapted very well to his coaching style. The board and I have got a lot of faith in Nollis and that’s why we have given him a four-year contract. It gives him the opportunity to build,” Van Graan said.

Even though the Blue Bulls will go into the final round of league play in the Currie Cup with a firm hold on second place, four points ahead of Western Province, after their 48-27 win over the Eastern Province Kings at Loftus Versfeld, the match showed the improvement that is still needed by the young side if they are to be a force in Super Rugby.

The Kings went into half-time with a 20-17 lead having dominated the gain-line and been slick with ball-in-hand as they probed both the near and wide channels. The Bulls managed to up the intensity to produce an impressive second-half display, but the ability to play an 80-minute game still eludes them.

“The first half was a bit lacklustre, we made mistakes and they capitalised, and we only started to get momentum in the second half. The pattern needs to suit the players and we needed to play less expansively because we lost Deon Stegmann before the game and Jacques du Plessis had to move from lock to flank, when we wanted to play a quick game. We had to stick to playing the ball closer and not going wide and the best thing was the improvement in the driving maul. We put them under pressure with it in the second half and it paid off for us,” Marais said.

A dismal first half put all their hard work this year at risk, but the Blue Bulls came storming back in the second half to beat the Eastern Province Kings 48-27 in their Currie Cup match at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night to stay on track for a home semi-final.

The Bulls trailed 17-20 at half-time as the Eastern Cape side pondered a sensational victory in Pretoria, but two moments of dazzling brilliance by scrumhalf Francois Hougaard led to tries in the 56^th and 66^th minutes as the home side pulled clear for a comfortable bonus-point victory. With the Cape mourning her side’s 62-32 thrashing at the hands of the Lions at Ellis Park, the Bulls now have a four-point lead over Western Province heading into the final weekend of round-robin action.

The Bulls’ defence around the fringes was woefully absent in the first half as centre Tim Whitehead and flyhalf Elgar Watts scored tries after breaks by side-stepping wing Sylvian Mahuza and scrumhalf Enrico Acker respectively.

They came out a different side after coach Nollis Marais no doubt laid down the law in the half-time break, and they employed the rolling maul to good effect, with Lappies Labuschagne (twice), centre Dries Swanepoel and replacement flank Ruan Steenkamp all scoring from the drive, which also caused two Kings players to be yellow-carded – replacement front-rankers Edgar Marutlulle and Schalk Ferreira.

Hougaard’s own try was a scintillating 55m effort as he broke from the back of a retreating scrum and beat half-a-dozen defenders with blinding pace, while he broke blind from a lineout drive 10 minutes later, Steenkamp cracking on the pace before passing back to the scrumhalf, who juggled and stumbled but powered on to within a couple of metres from the line,  substitute prop Werner Kruger scoring from the resultant ruck.

Scorers

Blue Bulls – Tries: Lappies Labuschagne (2), Dries Swanepoel, Francois Hougaard, Werner Kruger, Ruan Steenkamp, Jacques du Plessis. Conversions: Tian Schoeman (4), Louis Fouche. Penalty: Schoeman.

EP Kings – Tries: Tim Whitehead, Elgar Watts, JP du Plessis. Conversions: Scott van Breda (3). Penalties: Van Breda (2).

South Africa’s Rugby World Cup victory over Samoa brought relief but soon there was a tear in the eye as the news filtered through that they had lost their captain, Jean de Villiers, one of the great Springboks, for the rest of the tournament. The man with 109 Test caps, 37 of them as skipper, announced his retirement the next day.

De Villiers had, of course, been the centre (pardon the pun) of intense speculation over whether he deserved his place in the team after a run of injuries and a distinct lack of sharpness in the awful loss to Japan. The 34-year-old was shifted to outside centre for the match against Samoa, with Damian de Allende making a massive impact with his hard, direct running over the gain-line and into space in the number 12 jersey.

While De Allende was the man who made the most difference to the Springbok backline, it was heartening that De Villiers was at least able to go out on a high, leading the Springboks to an impressive win and playing well himself.

The Springboks also gained a considerable amount by having Willie le Roux at fullback – he was able to be a second “general” at first-receiver, taking some of the load off young Handre Pollard, while his ability to read space made his intrusions into the backline in wider positions a consistent threat.

Fourie du Preez also provided a top-class service from scrumhalf – one can scarcely recall a single pass going astray – and the veteran 2007 World Cup winner is not only a brilliant reader of the game but also a fantastic enabler in terms of allowing the team to change their tempo.

But where the turnaround for the Springboks came was up front. I said before the match that grunt and physicality up front would be needed against the big, mean and physical Samoans, who carry the ball with an intent not matched by many, and the Springboks really needed all hands on deck at the gain-line, rather than forwards standing out in the backline.

My wife is no connoisseur of the dark arts of forward play and the tight exchanges, but even she noticed how the Springbok pack “really seemed to be playing” against Samoa.

It was most heartening that the first Springbok to step up and lead the way was Victor Matfield, who was a standout figure in the opening exchanges, leading from the front with the sort of talismanic performance coach Heyneke Meyer was no doubt hoping for.

The Springboks showed that they can use the ball on attack as well as anybody, providing their forwards have laid the platform first; they need to earn the right to throw the ball around and there is no shame (and an awful lot of good sense) in playing to your own strengths instead of trying to copy the All Blacks.

The good news for South Africa is that the damage of the Japan loss has almost been undone with the Springboks sitting on seven log-points, thanks to bonus points, only one shy of where they would have wanted to have been heading into this weekend’s game against Scotland.

The campaign is back on an even keel and the relief and joy in the Springbok camp after the Samoa game was obvious. But the level of performance now needs to be raised another notch against Scotland; the consistency of this Springbok team has been a concern throughout the four years of Meyer’s tenure and hopefully, with the pressure now having eased, they don’t slump back into bad habits.