Ken Borland

Blue Bulls hooker Bandise Maku knows that how the pack responds to the pressure the powerful Western Province forwards will put them under will go a long way to deciding who wins their Currie Cup semi-final at Loftus Versfeld on Friday.

Western Province will come to Pretoria with a SuperRugby-strength team featuring a powerful front row of Steven Kitshoff, Bongi Mbonambi and Wilco Louw, and two of the best young locks in the country in Ruan Botha and Jean Kleyn, while the combative Nizaam Carr, the intimidating Rynhardt Elstadt and the pacy Sikhumbuzo Notshe form a superbly well-balanced loose trio.

“As a pack, we’ve gone quite well and guys like Pierre Schoeman, Marvin Orie and RG Snyman have come through well. But Western Province have a very good set-piece and are strong on the drive as well, so we’re expecting a big clash up front. Myself, Deon Stegmann, Lappies Labuschagne and Arno Botha have the experience, we need to stay level-headed because there’s always going to be pressure in a semi-final. It’s how you react to it that’s crucial and the set-piece battle is going to be very important, lineouts and defending the drive as well,” Maku told The Citizen on Tuesday.

Western Province, with Kitshoff at the forefront, will no doubt see the Blue Bulls scrum as a potential area of weakness, but Maku said they have improved since being worked over in Cape Town a month ago when the Blue Bulls were beaten 29-14.

“It’s important to get the combinations right up front and we’ve been doing quite well in the scrums lately. It’s still a work in progress, it’s long-term, but we have improved. There’s been a change in personnel and now we want to scrum, plus we have Werner Kruger coming off the bench to add his experience,” Maku said.

The 29-year-old Springbok is one of the most experienced players in the Blue Bulls team with 74 Currie Cup and 53 SuperRugby caps, and he sees taking whatever points are on offer as being the key factor in whether they reach their first final since 2010.

“It’s all about taking your chances. If you have a lineout five metres out, then you have to make it count. You need to take your points so you create scoreboard pressure, so you also have to kick very well, kick when you have to and keep the pressure on them with the boot. We’ll also need to play with more discipline because that will put pressure on them as well,” Maku said.

Former Springbok hooker Owen Nkumane is probably one of the better people to ask for SuperRugby tips because he spends much of his life snooping around the franchises in his role as a SuperSport analyst and commentator.

But even someone as knowledgeable as Nkumane believes tipping the winner – even of just the South African Conference – would require calling into service a crystal ball. Typically for a front-ranker, Nkumane has little time for things as flighty as guessing games and prefers to concentrate on the reality of the different franchises’ strengths and weaknesses.

And as a former Lions star, the 1998 UK tourist has most to say about his former team and is particularly interested to see whether they will employ the same brand of expansive rugby that took them to the Currie Cup final.

“I think it’s an exciting season for the Lions because they’ve got the money and the players now, so in a way there can be no excuses and that brings pressure. The element of surprise has gone and I think they’ll need to be a bit more structured and not try and force the issue with ball-in-hand. In a way they might have to be more conservative, they need to get the right balance in their play.

“They’ve got what it takes to break defences so they mustn’t chance it on attack. If they have a three-versus-two, they know how to convert it, whereas other teams will maybe try and force it,” Nkumane cautioned.

Another crucial factor in determining how successful the Lions are will be how coach Johan Ackermann uses flyhalves Marnitz Boshoff and Elton Jantjies.

“That’s going to be crucial and he needs to get the balance right there, like when it comes to running the ball or not. And conditioning and when to peak will also be vital. The Lions play for nine straight weeks and you don’t want the players hitting the wall in April and May. If you do too much now, then the guys will be gatvol in four weeks time,” Nkumane said.

The Bulls and Cheetahs were both major disappointments for Nkumane last season and he sees only one of those franchises having a chance this year.

“The Bulls lost games they should have won and couldn’t get any points away from home last year. But I think they are dark horses.

“The Cheetahs had a wonderful season in 2013 but didn’t come close to competing last year, and their defence is their Achilles heel,” Nkumane said.

The Sharks kissed their SuperRugby chances goodbye last year by not qualifying for a home semi-final and Nkumane says they have to see the season through to its completion and nail down top spot because they have the depth in the squad to do that.

Nkumane believes the Stormers will bring confidence from being Currie Cup champions to the Southern Hemisphere competition, but saying goodbye to long-serving coach Allister Coetzee, who is bound for Japan at the end of the campaign, might serve to motivate them even more.

“The Stormers have a good mix, but winning the Currie Cup does not guarantee success in SuperRugby. Fortunately they found out early about Allister Coetzee leaving and if they have a good start, then that might give them something to play for,” Nkumane said.

Looking to the overseas teams, Nkumane tipped the usual strongholds of the Crusaders, Blues, Reds, Waratahs, Brumbies and Chiefs to be most competitive.

http://citizen.co.za/324783/nkumane-talks-superrugby/

There was always plenty of niggle between the Springboks and Sean Fitzpatrick, and the World Cup final victory 20 years ago at Ellis Park was one of the few occasions when the South Africans managed to get the better of the great New Zealand hooker.

And not just on the scoreboard either because, according to replacement eighthman Rudolf Straeuli, the Springboks managed to rub salt in the wounds of the disconsolate All Black at the final scrum.

Straeuli’s role in Joel Stransky’s famous World Cup-winning drop goal is not often mentioned but, having come on for Mark Andrews, it was he who picked up the ball at the back of that scrum and set in motion the move that sent the ball to the flyhalf, even though something else had been planned.

“I just remember going on to the field and catching a 22 kickoff. Then we had the scrum, it wheeled a bit and it was just instinct, I called a back-row move because we couldn’t go the side we wanted, you can’t play against the wheel. Joel then called for the ball and the rest is history.

“But there was still time left after that and on that last scrum, on our tryline, I remember even Joost [van der Westhuizen] joined in. And then the scrum opened up and we were able to give Sean Fitzpatrick a few shots,” Straeuli chuckled.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge for Straeuli since 1995, including his own spell as the Springbok coach at the 2003 World Cup that ended in failure, and he is now the chief executive of the Golden Lions Rugby Union, having also coached the Sharks with some success. But his memories of the World Cup are inextricably linked to another highlight in his life.

“Every time I think about the World Cup I remember my daughter, Rieze’s birthday, because she was born 11 hours after the Australia game, my first child. Morne du Plessis organised for me to go and see her, but there was a lot of emotion after the final because we met up with family for the first time in six weeks. We went to Midrand to celebrate …” Straeuli recalled, before adding that the memories are tinged with sadness because of the two integral squad members who have passed away since 1995 – coach Kitch Christie and fellow loose forward Ruben Kruger.

To prove that great memories never die, wing Chester Williams can even remember what call was made at the fateful scrum that led to Stransky’s drop goal.

“We were going to play Black – a move that involved Rudolf and Francois Pienaar and then Andre Joubert would run on the outside, but at the last second Joel saw that Graeme Bachop [All Blacks scrumhalf] was putting a lot of pressure on Joost, so he cancelled the move and went for the drop goal,” Williams said.

“When we arrived, with the amazing crowd, we all believed we could win, then 20 minutes before kickoff, Nelson Mandela is in our changeroom! This world icon, wearing our jersey, and he said he was here as our biggest fan. We then all followed Kobus Wiese at the haka, we decided to take on the challenge.

“My happiest day before that was getting back into the squad, but that day I saw people hugging, crying and embracing in the stadium and I saw the Rainbow Nation for the first time. It started before the final with coaching clinics in Khayelitsha and Soweto,” Williams said.

Francois Pienaar quote – “It’s amazing to think that it’s 20 years since I had the incredible privilege of standing on the same podium as Nelson Mandela. While the game was on, we had the sense that something big was happening, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would have such a deep impact in our country. We made big steps then, celebrating together for the first time.”

Bismarck du Plessis, widely regarded as the world’s best hooker, is back in the starting line-up for the Springboks’ crunch Test against the All Blacks in Johannesburg on Saturday.

The South Africans are fortunate, of course, to be able to call on Adriaan Strauss of the Free State Cheetahs as the back-up on the bench, while Saracens star Schalk Brits is also in the wider squad but cannot break into the match-day 23.

The Springboks struggled in the tight phases during the first half of the Rugby Championship and the younger brother of tighthead prop Jannie has never been known as the strongest scrummager, while the inconsistency of his lineout throwing was also exploited by the Argentineans and especially by the Wallabies in Perth.

The most noticeable sign that something was amiss with Bismarck, however, came in the absence of the massive hits, storming ball-carries and steals on the ground that he was famous for last year.

The elevation of Strauss to the starting line-up saw an improvement in the Springboks’ set-pieces but it has also allowed Du Plessis to make more of an impact coming off the bench.

So is Du Plessis’ star on the wane or is this just a temporary loss of form for the Sharks powerhouse?

At the age of 30, it is more likely to be the latter and the Sharks’ insistence on playing Du Plessis in all 17 of their SuperRugby games this year seemed to have diluted the energy of one of the most explosive rugby players in the world.

“Bismarck has played a lot of rugby this year and we always planned to rest him. He’s had a good break now after Adriaan started three in a row, and the selection is purely a rotation, to keep both players fresh,” Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer confirmed.

“Adriaan is playing some of the best rugby of his whole career, but last week against Australia took a lot out of the players, the ball was in play more than ever before and there were more tackles as well. It doesn’t matter who starts, they both have very strong points and they’re both in-form.”