Ken Borland

Conrad Smith is a much-loved son of Wellington and a stalwart of the Hurricanes side for the last 12 years, and he believes the franchise finally has the right blend of players to challenge for the SuperRugby title.

Captain Smith has seen many disappointments in those dozen years of SuperRugby, with the Hurricanes making the playoffs four times but appearing in just one final – the 2006 clash with the Crusaders which they lost 19-12.

And the one thing Smith, who is bound for promotion candidates Pau after the World Cup, has learned from those experiences is that champion teams need to have grunt up front.

“You need to be a complete team if you’re going to go far in this competition and in the dozen seasons I’ve played with the Hurricanes, we’ve always had an impressive backline but we’ve still come up short.

“It’s because we haven’t always had the complete team, but now our forwards are really fronting up,” Smith said after his team beat the Bulls 17-13 at Loftus Versfeld, their pack leading the way in securing their second successive win in South Africa and ensuring a highly encouraging start to their SuperRugby campaign.

Against both the Bulls and the Lions last weekend, sides renowned for having abrasive forwards, the Hurricanes pack really got stuck in and dominated their opposition.

“Hats off to the forwards, they’ve really carried us through these first two games. There’s lots for us blokes in the backs to improve on,” Smith admitted.

Although the Hurricanes boasted TJ Perenara, Beauden Barrett, Julian Savea, Ma’a Nonu, Smith and Corey Jane in their backline, it has been their work in the set-pieces and at the breakdowns that has highlighted their winning start to the season.

There has also been a noticeable improvement in the Hurricanes’ defence, with the Kiwis conceding just eight points against the Lions and 13 versus the Bulls.

“Our defence is something we have focused on, if we’re going to be there at the end of the competition, then defence is something you have to rely on. It’s what wins big games and we’ve been really encouraging there in the first two weeks. In the past the Bulls’ lineout drive has caused us real problems, and our defence of that was outstanding,” Smith said.

New Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd was delighted with the start, but was also cautious to not get carried away.

“We’re delighted with our start, especially winning at Ellis Park and Loftus Versfeld, two bastions of the game over here, and we’re certainly happy with eight points.

“But we’re not overly happy with the way we played tonight and it’s a 16-round competition. Two wins is great, but we could lose the next two or three games,” Boyd said.

However, with a top-class backline waiting to click and a mobile, willing pack, the Hurricanes now have a match against the Force in Perth and then a bye, before a run of home games. They must be a decent bet to challenge strongly for the playoffs if they can maintain their current momentum.

Sharks CEO John Smit is hoping to regularly hear the applause of 30 000 people at Kings Park this year as his team mount a strong SuperRugby challenge, but he’s hoping too that other South African franchises are also pushing hard for the title because that will be the greatest benefit to the Springboks’ World Cup campaign.

Smit told The Citizen that there are enormous benefits to be gained from SuperRugby for the Springboks, remembering how crucial the tournament was in 2007 when he led South Africa to the World Cup crown in Paris. Earlier that year, the Bulls and Sharks had competed in the SuperRugby final, with the Bulls snatching a dramatic Bryan Habana-inspired one-point victory.

“The big thing in 2007 was that the Bulls and Sharks had such successful campaigns and so we were very well prepared for the World Cup. If you’ve got a SuperRugby title-chase to focus on, then the World Cup doesn’t become a distraction and SuperRugby was the best platform and preparation for our win in France.

“I hope it’s the same case this year and we have two or three teams right up there because you’re playing against the guys you have to beat at the World Cup. The players should go out intending to win SuperRugby this year and your best-performing players should be the Springboks. That’s what happened in 2007, we had the guys to win the World Cup and they were confident and well-prepared from SuperRugby,” Smit said.

The former Springbok captain is also hoping that Sharks rugby emerges from an unhappy 2013 in which crowd numbers dropped dramatically at King’s Park in response to an unpopular non-possession based game plan employed by Jake White.

“We’re still 14% behind on our season ticket sales but I’d like to see more than 30 000 people at King’s Park on Saturday for our opening game against the Cheetahs. Time will tell, it’s a big challenge, but we’ve been working hard on our marketing, getting the fans closer to the players, having open days and more interaction, whereas they were removed before.

“We had a good squad last year and we could have won the competition, but the environment possibly wasn’t good enough. This year we have an even better squad and a better environment,” Smit said.

The “better environment” is mostly due to Smit letting go of White in what must have been a tough decision for South Africa’s longest-serving Test captain to make; fortunately he has found a top-class replacement in Gary Gold, a former Springbok assistant coach.

“It’s been a pretty seamless transition and Gary has put in place such instrumental plans. He, Brendan Venter and defence coach Michael Horak were all at London Irish together and Gary has fitted in as if he’s been here the whole time.

“So there’s nothing too new happening with the team, Gary understood the vision and his arrival has certainly been a positive,” Smit said.

In terms of the Sharks’ SuperRugby rivals, Smit expects a fierce derby against the Cheetahs this weekend, even though their small pool of players means they will find it hard to maintain a challenge throughout the competition, while the Stormers have a history of success behind them.

But Smit is most concerned by the Bulls, who he says have been able to gather a powerful squad together in Pretoria.

“The Bulls are going to pose a far bigger challenge this year. In the last two or three years, they’ve come a long way, quietly going about their business, and they’ve made some key signings, especially those three Free Staters who will have a massive impact in the pack.

“Pierre Spies is back off the bench and, in the meantime, Victor Matfield will captain the side. Not too many squads have that sort of depth of leadership,” Smit said.

The Sharks are expecting to go to France in a month’s time with a close-to-full-strength squad for their challenge match against European champions Toulon, according to assistant coach Brad Macleod-Henderson.

The mouth-watering clash against the Heineken Cup powerhouses will take place on Thursday, February 5 at the Stade Mayol, with the Sharks leaving for France on January 31. Barring any injury concerns, it will be the final SuperRugby squad that goes on tour, and Macleod-Henderson said the period of team-building during the week in France would be as important as the actual game.

“Toulon are the best team in Europe, so obviously it’s going to be a good test for us, but it’s also a time when we can strengthen the relationships within the team,” Macleod-Henderson told The Citizen.

The current Springboks in the squad will start training on Monday and most of them will be available for the Toulon match, while the likes of Willem Alberts and Pieter-Steph du Toit are online with their rehabilitation to play in the Sharks’ opening SuperRugby fixture on February 14 against the Cheetahs in Durban.

This year’s SuperRugby competition will be slightly different, with no break in June for international rugby and the World Cup in September providing plenty of motivation for the players.

The focus for the Sharks in their pre-season preparations has been on their attack, with Macleod-Henderson saying they need to score more tries.

“The World Cup is definitely going to up the ante this year and we need to score more tries to win the competition, the Waratahs showed that last year. We’re working on it, we’re spending quite a bit of time on our attack,” he said.

But the 2013 Currie Cup-winning coach said there was still plenty of work going into the details of defence and the breakdown.

Springbok women's coach Lawrence Sephaka

Former Springbok prop Lawrence Sephaka is the man responsible for gathering South Africa’s women’s rugby forces for a World Cup challenge just five weeks from now, and the coach yesterday pronounced himself happy with preparations as his team trained at the High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria.

“There’s excitement all round, the players are all on a high and things are going good. It’s important to me that we keep on improving, because we have higher places to get to, and this is a great bunch of girls, very funny and sociable. There’s a great camaraderie,” Sephaka told The Pretoria News yesterday.

South Africa have been drawn with big guns Australia and hosts France, as well as Wales, in the World Cup, which starts on August 1, but Sephaka is more concerned with continuing the process of improvement that has been so apparent with the women’s Springboks, rather than individual matches.

“We are a rugby-loving nation and it’s worrying that we are only ranked 10^th in the world. We’re a proud nation so we want to improve on that, but we need to follow the steps to get there, otherwise we could miss some things and stumble. So we’re not going to focus on individual games, but rather on our implementation. That will determine how we grow,” Sephaka said.

The owner of 24 Springbok caps said South Africa’s success at the World Cup would be down to quality set-pieces and physicality.

“We pride ourselves on our set-pieces because that will give us good ball to play from. If we don’t get good ball then we can’t strike through our backs and I believe we have a pretty talented backline. But we need to put them on the front foot. We need to take whatever pressure we’re under and also convert our chances,” Sephaka said.

“But if we cut out physicality from our game then we’ll also have a problem. We must embrace it and all these girls love that challenge, they love collisions, they live for it. I can give them targets and challenges and they just want to go and take out players. It gives them confidence.

“They love contact, but we also need to play smart when we can and there are some special things in our game plan too.”

Springbok captain Mandisa Williams

Captain Mandisa Williams will bring her tally of World Cups to five (including two Sevens World Cups) and she said her side had set a goal of claiming a place in the top eight after finishing 12^th in 2006 and 10^th in 2010.

“We’re focusing on getting to the top eight, which we’ve never made before. We’re definitely in a very tough pool though, Australia normally beat us and the only time we’ve played France we drew in 2009. But we’re playing on their home grounds so that will be very tough. We need to stay composed and stick to our structures,” Williams said.

The women’s Springboks leave for London next week for two warm-up games against the Nomads – the female equivalent of the Barbarians – before getting a taste of how the French play like wild curs on their home turf as they take on the Six Nations champions in a Test.

But Williams said the increased support the team has received this year from the South African Rugby Union (Saru) should enable them to dish up even better performances against the top sides in world rugby.

“In the last year we’ve been shown a lot of support. Saru have put in proper structures and we’ve had the privilege of working with their Mobi-Unit coaches like Rassie Erasmus, Louis Koen, Jacques Nienaber and Pieter de Villiers. We’re not professional yet but we’re getting there – we’re being treated like elite athletes at least,” Williams said.

There is a wealth of experience in this Springbok women’s side, with Lorinda Brown, Phumeza Gadu, Zenay Jordaan, Fundiswa Plaatjie, Ziyanda Tywaleni, Nolusindiso Booi, Nomathamsanqa Faleni, Portia Jonga, Lamla Momoti and Williams all having been mourners at previous World Cups, but there is also exciting talent coming through to reflect the strides women’s rugby is making in South Africa.