Ken Borland

The sign of a champion team is that even in the most frustrating or seemingly hopeless times, they ban all thought of defeat and find a way to win. The Bulls were that side as they snuck a 31-27 win over the Stormers at the death in their Rainbow Cup match at Loftus Versfeld.

It was more a case of frustration than hopelessness for the Bulls because they were clearly playing well enough to win comfortably, thoroughly dominating territory and possession. But like a tree dropping its leaves in autumn, their play was littered with mistakes – passes going astray, four tries disallowed due to errors in the build-up, and lineouts lost deep in the Stormers’ 22. But still they found a way and they rescued their unbeaten run in Pretoria via lock Ruan Nortje, who was immense along with flank Marcell Coetzee, forcing his way over for their fourth try on the final hooter.

Coach Jake White was asked after the game if he ever thought his team were going to lose as the Stormers built up a 17-7 halftime lead. His response was telling:

“No, we don’t think like that. You’ve got to believe you’re going to win and I saw it in the players’ eyes after I spoke to them at halftime that they believed in what I said that we will win this game. This team never lies down. It’s moments like these that you coach for – to come back from 7-17 down against a really classy side who have won twice in a row at the death before this match.

“I think we were a bit naïve when we had only 13 players against us, the ball went wide too quickly, maybe because it was two backline players yellow-carded. But we couldn’t just go around them and we got caught a few times because they defended very well and caught us behind the advantage line. As soon as we became more direct, going through the middle to compress the defence, we opened them up,” White said.

The Bulls were in position for their last-ditch win thanks to a scrum penalty won in the closing stages, and White said he was pleased with the way his team managed to keep the powerful Stormers scrum at bay.

“I said after our last game that we would sort the scrum out and we took their power away there today by going channel one and getting the ball out quickly. As the Bulls, we like to scrum and get first-phase dominance, but we showed great tactical awareness and game management there by keeping away from scrumming. And when we needed one at the end, we got the penalty.

“You don’t want to win like that but the guys really stuck at it. We had a lot of opportunities, four tries were disallowed, but we made it hard for ourselves,” White said.

Stormers coach John Dobson said he was proud of his team for denying the Bulls for so long, even though they had little more than 20% of territory and possession.

“We made more than 250 tackles at altitude, which shows huge character and I’m very happy with the conditioning, and the attack did some good things. To come up here and compete was great, but we are devastated to not close out the game and the changeroom is heartbroken,” Dobson said.

Former Proteas captain Faf du Plessis was left out of the tour to the West Indies because he has no contract in place with Cricket South Africa, but negotiations are underway to possibly add him to the squad for the T20 matches that begin on June 26, Rapport can reveal.

While Du Plessis has retired from Test cricket and is generally considered a free agent these days, due to the current policies in place, if he had gone on tour to the West Indies he would have received no remuneration for the tour save for match fees, which are little more than a top-up for those players who are on contracts.

With the number of free agents only likely to increase with the rise of lucrative T20 leagues, it is a gap in CSA’s contracting system which director of cricket Graeme Smith is trying to fix in consultation with the South African Cricketers Association (the players’ union).

In the meantime, there is a chance that Du Plessis, who showed that he is still one of South Africa’s best T20 batsman with his strong showing in the suspended IPL, could reignite his T20 World Cup hopes by playing in the West Indies. For that to happen, the national selectors would have to agree to add him to the squad and Du Plessis would have to agree to special financial terms CSA will offer. The organisation budgeted for 17 national men’s contracts for the season but only awarded 16 of them, and the some of the money from that extra ‘salary’ is believed to be on offer for Du Plessis.

While there has been some talk of the selectors adopting a hardline stance to free agents going forward, to his credit convenor Victor Mpitsang cast a balanced tone with Rapport on Friday.

“It’s a no-brainer, Faf is still a helluva player and he has a wonderful record in T20 cricket. He’s not out of the World Cup running, but about a month ago it was decided that all free agents need to play domestically a bit as well to be chosen for the Proteas. People always talk about the West Indies and all their free agents, but they all come back and play in the Caribbean Premier League. We need to be fair in our system,” Mpitsang said.

The current policy for the contracting of Proteas sees the players ranked from No.1 to No.16, depending on the balance of Test, ODI and T20 matches in the next season, using scientific data methods. But free agents, who fall outside of that system, are what one CSA official described as “the elephant in the room that everyone has been avoiding”.

It’s another problem that Smith has inherited as director of cricket and issues like the one with Du Plessis are going to happen more and more. Checks and balances obviously need to be in place to ensure the free agents are not just using the Proteas to score lucrative T20 contracts elsewhere, but are actually contributing to the national team’s culture and success.

There is also the danger that if players are given format-specific contracts, then many could opt out of Test cricket and just play the white-ball formats.

On the other hand, the Proteas need to have marquee players that the top teams want to play against and that people want to watch in action, developing a strong team is obviously a key strategic objective of CSA.

Other prominent free agents who are not currently playing for the Proteas in T20 cricket are AB de Villiers, Imran Tahir and Chris Morris. It has been the same old story with De Villiers, with the superstar batsman seemingly poised for a comeback at the World Cup before once again pulling out, while the actual availability of Morris seems to be a point of contention.

The Proteas seem content to allow Tahir to drift into retirement and continue with Tabraiz Shamsi and their other orthodox spinners.

But there certainly seems to be a gap in the Proteas’ inexperienced batting line-up when it comes to Du Plessis, who has expressed his desire to keep playing through to the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia. The 36-year-old declined to comment on why he was not initially chosen for the Caribbean tour, but did confirm it was a contractual issue.

Free agents are a tough issue to handle in a way that ensures fairness for those players who are 100% involved in South African cricket, but the future success of the Proteas demands that CSA, the selectors and SACA somehow get on the same page and come up with an accord that allows these stars to still have some sort of contractual arrangement with CSA.

And in the short-term, gets Faf to the West Indies.

Given their complete dominance in terms of territory and possession, the Bulls should have ripped the Stormers to shreds in their Rainbow Cup match at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night, but instead they shot themselves amidships, never mind in the foot, before stealing a 31-27 win at the death.

The Bulls wasted three tries in open play, disallowed due to mistakes in the build-up, and conceded four through soft defence. The Stormers, on the other hand, deserve immense credit for their superb defence and their brilliant counter-attacking play. They led 17-7 midway through the North/South derby and managed to find extra reserves of energy in the second half after the Bulls scored two tries in quick succession to snatch a 21-17 lead.

Both those tries wee scored by hooker Johan Grobbelaar off lineout drives, and their first-half score by Marcell Coetzee, storming over just 13 minutes into his Bulls debut, also came via a rolling maul.

But the Stormers once again caught the Bulls a step behind at the restart as flyhalf Tim Swiel caught the ball, had a dart against a dozy chasing line and then passed to wing Rosko Specman, who exploded into action, stepping and swerving, before passing back to Swiel to score.

A Morne Steyn penalty regained the lead, but Stormers wing Edwill van der Merwe weaved his way over for his second try out wide to put the Stormers back in front 27-24 going into the last 10 minutes.

But it was ultimately the Bulls’ day as Jacques van Rooyen forced a scrum penalty against Frans Malherbe, putting the Bulls on attack. They bashed and bashed until lock Ruan Nortje, who put in an outstanding 80-minute effort, forced his way over at the hooter for a face-saving try.

For all the time they spent in the Stormers’ 22, the Bulls were extremely wasteful, losing the ball and lineouts way too many times for a team that aims to win in Europe. That they put their frustration aside to triumph was a positive, but adding to their difficulties was talismanic captain Duane Vermeulen limping off in the 34^th minute with a twisted ankle.

That will have the Springboks biting their nails as well.

Scorers

Bulls: Tries – Marcell Coetzee, Johan Grobbelaar (2), Ruan Nortje. Conversions – Morne Steyn (4). Penalty – Steyn.

Stormers: Tries – Damian Willemse, Edwill van der Merwe (2), Tim Swiel. Conversions – Swiel (2). Penalty – Swiel.

Late lapses cost the Sharks victory against the Bulls and the Stormers, and also made their game against the Lions before that closer than it should have been, and that is a key area of improvement coach Sean Everitt is looking for when his team travel to Ellis Park on Saturday for their Rainbow Cup encounter with the Gautengers.

And even though the Sharks are resting several Springboks as per the agreement with SA Rugby, Everitt has been able to name a powerful bench that should be able to have a late impact against the Lions. Their first-choice front row is amongst the replacements, Ruben van Heerden and Thembelani Bholi are seasoned forwards now, centre Jeremy Ward is an exciting runner and scrumhalf Grant Williams’ ability to lift the pace is perhaps his greatest attribute.

“When we played the Lions here at Kings Park, we had a lapse in the last 10 minutes, but the game was basically won. Fez Mbatha, Ox Nche and Thomas du Toit can hopefully be a bit of a bomb squad for us in Joburg and we can finish stronger than we have in the last few weeks, so things have worked out nicely in that regard. We’ve had a good break and have been able to work on the aspects that have let us down,” Everitt said.

The impressive coaching methods of Everitt have seen him create a real family atmosphere within the Sharks squad and he has always focused on ensuring the levels of performance are right rather than results. Now that the Sharks are under pressure to deliver a result against the Lions to keep them contending for the Rainbow Cup final, nothing will change.

“There is pressure to perform in all areas, not just to win. In some games our scrum hasn’t functioned and then our scrum will be good but the lineout fails. Results come with performance, ensuring we get those processes right first; performance goes hand-in-hand with results. We are still in the race and we have played good rugby up there recently.

“The conditions suit the exciting brand of rugby we want to play and in the last 18 months we have got the mental aspect of playing on the Highveld right. We know that the Lions have improved a lot over the last four weeks though, since our last game against them, and I am expecting a tough tussle,” Everitt said.

The Sharks have won their last four matches at Ellis Park, dating back to their defeat in the opening game of Super Rugby in 2018.