Ken Borland

It is seldom such overwhelming favourites are so conclusively played off the field as the Sharks were by Western Province, but that’s what happened in the Currie Cup final in front of a stunned King’s Park crowd in Durban.

The Sharks, with a dozen Springboks in their squad and form and momentum on their side after topping the Currie Cup log, were expected to enjoy a stroll in the park against a young and injury-hit Western Province side that had lost their last four matches against the Natalians.

But sport is such wonderful entertainment exactly because of the sort of upset Western Province dished up on Saturday. The new Currie Cup champions also delivered a timely warning that, no matter how flashy or skilful your side is, you ignore the set-pieces at your peril.

Hooker is a position where the Sharks have enjoyed tremendous depth in the past, with John Smit and Bismarck du Plessis battling it out for supremacy up to last year and Craig Burden becoming a fast-rising star.

But Burden is a re-treaded wing, and a hooker’s core skill is throwing into the lineout. Unfortunately for the Sharks, his throwing was wayward in the final and, under immense pressure from the magnificent Eben Etzebeth, the home side could only win two of their eight lineouts, which fatally stymied their game plan.

The Burden was replaced on the hour mark, but things did not go much better for substitute Kyle Cooper and it was he who dropped the pass after the hooter as the Sharks launched a desperate last-ditch effort to level the scores.

Having almost single-handedly dismantled the Sharks’ lineout, Etzebeth was also massive on defence, carrying the ball up and even chasing kicks – it is difficult to think of a more destructive force in South African rugby at the moment.

Etzebeth turns 21 on Monday, but he came of age in a rugby sense a long time ago and is surely a shoe-in for the SA Rugby Player of the Year award next month.

On a national level, Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer is currently under pressure to choose flashier players but, as we saw in the Currie Cup final, if these fan favourites cannot deliver the goods in their primary roles, whether that be in the set-pieces, servicing the backline or defending, then they will be exposed in the cauldron of high-stakes rugby.

Sharks scrumhalf Cobus Reinach had been impressive in helping his team into the final, but fickle fans who were saying he should be in the Springbok squad on the basis of a couple of months of good play had their views rammed back in their faces, as the 22-year-old was another to be exposed. The son of late rugby and athletics Springbok Jaco Reinach struggled with the quality of his service and was poor on defence, the inexperienced error he made in the 36^thminute leading to Juan de Jongh’s try that shifted the momentum the way of the visitors.

The final seemed to be going according to script before then, as the Sharks took a 12-3 lead courtesy of four Pat Lambie penalties. The Sharks had been dominating the scrums, but the home side was also helped by the referee, Jaco Peyper, who inflicted a string of poor decisions against Western Province in the second quarter, denying them crucial momentum.

But the character of the young Cape team was the outstanding feature of the final. The way they dominated a Sharks pack full of top stars says much for the work of coach Allister Coetzee – who has now taken them to three major finals – has done between their ears.

Credit, too, must go to captain Deon Fourie, a hooker playing on the flank, who kept driving his team on and was a major frustration on the ground for the Sharks.

Western Province was also thoroughly committed on defence, with the try-saving tackle Bryan Habana made on fellow Springbok wing JP Pietersen in the seventh minute setting an early benchmark.

In the final minute, the Sharks had broken free and looked set to score before the heroics of fullback Joe Pietersen and flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis spoilt the move.

Catrakilis, the unsung number 10 who was meant to be outshone by Lambie, had earlier kicked the two drop goals that stretched the lead to 25-18 – the final score – and the 23-year-old will now head to the EP Kings as a Currie Cup-winning flyhalf.

The Johannesburg-born Catrakilis will certainly be delighted with the way the career choices he has made have turned out. A highly promising footballer who was a member of the Moroka Swallows junior squad and toured with a South African invitational team, the St John’s pupil chose rugby at the end of high school.

The picture of a young Catrakilis in a winning junior football team that hangs in a Johannesburg car dealership can now be replaced by one featuring South Africa’s most iconic sporting trophy.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-29-keep-calm-and-currie-on-wp-wallops-the-sharks

The Currie Cup enters its first knockout stage this weekend and for all the sides there is a varying weight of expectation that returning Springboks will make the difference and inspire their teams into the final.

As the Lions proved last year in winning the title, bringing big-name players back into the squad this late in the season can, however, disturb the unity and fabric of a team that has presumably gelled to a greater or lesser extent over the 10 previous weekends in order to reach the semi-finals.

Western Province, like last year, will be travelling to Johannesburg to take on the Lions, but they have already lost three of their returning Springboks with centre Jean de Villiers, lock Andries Bekker and hooker Tiaan Liebenberg all injured in the last week.

It may actually help coach Allister Coetzee that the only “new” faces in the starting XV are now Bryan Habana out on the wing, Duane Vermeulen at eighthman and Eben Etzebeth at lock, while outside centre Juan de Jongh played the first half of the Currie Cup season for Western Province.

The replacement for De Villiers in the number 12 jersey, Marcel Brache, is a tall, strong player who has made a definite impact this season and it will be good to see him in the pressure situation of a semi-final.

Likewise, it is just reward for his livewire performances that Scarra Ntubeni will now play instead of Liebenberg and is within touching distance of appearing in that Currie Cup final every young player aspires to, but the absence of Bekker will be a blow because he has such a presence in the lineouts and one fancies Western Province may have attacked the Lions in that facet. His replacement, De Kock Steenkamp, is a solid player but not a potential match-winner like Bekker.

Western Province took the Cheetahs apart last weekend to earn their semi-final berth, but it was mostly one-way traffic against a troubled side.

The Lions are a totally different prospect: a settled unit and clearly a team that plays for each other, only strengthened by the players’ decision to stand together and oust former coach John Mitchell.

They would not have taken much out of their last game, when they rested several key players and were mauled 50-29 by the Bulls, but they did the same thing last year and they were near-unstoppable in the semi-final and final.

Lions stand-in coach Johan Ackermann had difficult decisions to make this week regarding four current Springboks – Jaco Taute, Elton Jantjies, Pat Cilliers and CJ van der Linde – and he has decided to start Taute and Jantjies, both of whom have played their fair share of Currie Cup this year, while either Cilliers or Van der Linde will play off the bench, alongside former internationals Butch James and hooker Bandise Maku.

The Lions lost two of their first three matches, and have lost their previous two games, but in between they have gained decent momentum and there is no particular aspect of their play that can be considered weak. If they do the basics well on Saturday, then few would bet against them beating Western Province, who have been far less settled and have a long history of underperformance in knockout games.

The other semi-final is between the Bulls and the Sharks in Durban and it has been a long and hard campaign for the men from Pretoria.

It’s bad enough for the Blue Bulls faithful that their team has not won the Currie Cup for three years; to have only escaped possible relegation on the final weekend of round-robin play is nothing short of a scandal. So there is no lack of hunger in Dewald Potgieter’s team to turn a pig’s ear of a season into an extraordinary triumph.

If anyone knows about winning knockout games it will be Bulls flyhalf Morne Steyn, who played well last weekend but whether the year’s tribulations have left him mentally fatigued will be fully examined by the Sharks and the pressure of a semi-final.

The presence of Springboks Zane Kirchner, Francois Hougaard, Jacques Potgieter, Juandre Kruger and Flip van der Merwe has added some much-needed quality to the Bulls side, but the ball-in-hand, free-flowing style of the Sharks will certainly test the defensive prowess of the visitors.

Defence has been the obvious weakness of the Bulls this year and they will face a difficult balancing act in terms of how many numbers to commit to the breakdowns, especially since the Sharks like to play a high-tempo game.

Sharks coach John Plumtree has refused to put all his eggs in one basket when it comes to the Springboks and hooker Craig Burden, prop Tendai Mtawarira and flank Willem Alberts will all be used off the bench as impact players.

At this stage last year, Plumtree brought all his World Cup Springboks back at once and it meant the Sharks produced a disjointed display when it really mattered.

Wing JP Pietersen would have been a key player for the Springboks this year were it not for injury, and he is the main threat in a backline that is well-suited to counter-attacking from wayward kicks hoisted on to them by the Bulls.

Pat Lambie will also be pulling the strings at flyhalf and, with rain forecast for the match, he has an ideal opportunity to dissuade Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer from returning the number 10 jersey to Steyn for what are expected to be wet conditions for the United Kingdom tour.

While Coetzee, Ackermann, Bulls coach Pine Pienaar and Plumtree are all gambling in different ways, spare a thought for Free State Cheetahs coach Naka Drotske.

His job is most definitely on the line as his team go into the first leg of their promotion/relegation playoff against the EP Kings. Drotske’s expansive style has not worked and his best bet would seem to be to return to more percentage rugby now that his own future depends on the result.

The Kings, the owners of an unbeaten record in the Currie Cup First Division, will obviously arrive in Bloemfontein with confidence high, but whether they can step up to the next level against a Premier Division outfit remains to be seen.

If they can keep the ball away from the dangerous Cheetahs backs then they may have a chance.

In an interesting conundrum, Drotske will be expecting utter professionalism from his inside centre Andries Strauss, who has a contract to play for the Kings next year and would obviously benefit if they were to be promoted at the expense of his current team!

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-20-rugby-preview-of-conundrums-and-currie-cups