Ken Borland

Jordan Hendrikse was able to channel his inner Naas Botha and kick the Sharks to a last-ditch victory in the Currie Cup final at Ellis Park on Saturday night, his astonishing 59m penalty in the freezing cold and wet giving the Natalians a thrilling 16-14 win.

Hendrikse’s massive kick came in the 83^rd minute and was the last act of the match. Having been booed heartily when he first touched the ball by the Ellis Park crowd he called his own a few months ago, the fullback certainly had the last say with the final touch.

But the 23-year-old would shun all suggestion of revenge or proving a point after the match.

“No-one expected the Lions to have the season they’ve had and they deserved to host this final. But my move to Durban was all about challenging myself,” Hendrikse said. “The coach prepared us well and we knew there would be no friends here tonight, this was a personal one and I knew they would come for me.

“But I just tried to be in my space, stay in my own mind. The crowd is always a factor in the pressure moments, but I just tried to stay in my own mind. I just tried to stay calm and think about my processes. Getting that sort of pressure kick over makes all those 5am early kicking sessions worth it,” Hendrikse said.

With a drizzle accompanying the icy temperature that peaked at 6°, both teams found the going tough as hell in the first half, which ended scoreless. If the conditions were not bad enough for the crowd, the attritional rugby with understandably many kicks made the final an even tougher sell. And yet it ended up being a thriller, one of the most memorable finals of recent times.

While the damp underfoot conditions did make kicking for poles difficult, it was not particularly blowy and it was surprising, especially considering Hendrikse’s epic effort that decided the match, that both teams spurned opportunities to shoot at goal in the first half.

The Sharks had two chances in kickable range but instead kicked to the corner to set up the rolling maul. But setting the maul properly and getting traction for momentum is also tough on a wet, slippery field, and the visitors were unable to convert any of their dominant territory (68%) or possession (63%) into points.

The Lions also turned down a shot at goal in the first half, and their best scoring chances came from a couple of searing breaks by flyhalf Sanele Nohamba, but they then blew the move on both occasions.

Under John Plumtree, the Sharks have favoured an attacking philosophy, but it was hard to play expansively in the prevailing conditions.

“We could have played a bit more, but the opportunities were really around what happened in the air. We had to put them under pressure and put the ball in space. Both teams really had the same plan,” coach Plumtree said.

The Sharks were also able to find space out wide with ball-in-hand and 13 minutes into the second half, their efforts bore fruit.

It’s been a tough time for Andre Esterhuizen since he returned to South Africa, what with suspensions and injuries, but the centre showed his class throughout the match and his slick hands and perfectly-timed pass to Ethan Hooker set the youngster up for a classic winger’s try, going inside-and-out to beat Nohamba.

The Lions levelled matters at 7-7 four minutes later as scrumhalf Nico Steyn opportunistically sniped over on a tap-penalty, but the Sharks tightened their grip going into the last 10 minutes with two penalties. While the Lions had the edge in the scrums, the Natalians were strong at the breakdowns, and a dominant ruck presented flyhalf Siya Masuku with a 65^th-minute penalty.

The second penalty came with a yellow card for the Lions as replacement prop Juan Schoeman made contact with the chin in a tackle on Hendrikse, who then got up and, in a portent of what would happen at the end of the match, slotted a superb angled, long-range kick to put the visitors 13-7 up.

But the seven-man Lions scrum then forced a penalty at the set-piece – double World Cup winner Trevor Nyakane may need his ego to be massaged a little after the battering he took in the scrums – and it gave the home side a lineout in the Sharks’ 22. The ball was spread and hooker Morne Brandon made the break with a storming run, before replacement lock Sibabalo Qoma crashed over for the try.

Nohamba’s conversion put the Lions 14-13 ahead with less than five minutes remaining.

Why the Lions then decided to maul at a lineout after the final hooter had gone will only be known in the intimate leadership circles of the team. All they needed to do was win the lineout and kick the ball out, but a pointless maul resulted in the ball somehow popping out on the Sharks’ side. Hendrikse made sure his former team were fully punished.

“I’m really proud of the boys because they never give up. With time up on the clock, you wonder how you are going to get possession, and then the next minute they give us a sniff. When the Lions won their last penalty, I thought it was game over, but they gave us one more chance,” Plumtree, who won the Currie Cup for the sixth time – twice as a player and now four times as coach – said. He is still a little way behind Botha, who kicked Northern Transvaal to nine Currie Cup crowns.

“The URC may be our main goal, but this win was really important for this group, it’s a big-time boost before we get on the plane on Monday. The Currie Cup is still something unique and special, I’ve had ex-players sending me messages all day, and a lot of people in Natal are very happy. It’s a beautiful trophy that I didn’t think I would hold again … ”

Travelling to the inner city of Johannesburg to play at Ellis Park has never been easy for any visiting team, whether international or domestic, and Bulls coach Jake White was certainly not shocked when his team were upset 34-33 by the Lions in their Rainbow Cup match there at the weekend.

While the Lions were winless and at the bottom of the log, they had been extremely competitive and could easily have won a couple of games already before they hosted the Bulls. It was a potential banana peel and White was wary, with good cause as the Lions rode a superb scrummaging display and the Bulls’ own mistakes to inflict the first loss on the Currie Cup champions since March 26.

“The Lions are always difficult to play against and they had a really good scrum today. It’s not something we can’t fix and we’re learning as coaches as well, what resources we have. But you don’t know how they are going to react under pressure unless they are put in those situations. When you’re winning, you take the good; now we have to take this knock on the chin and learn from it.

“Playing under pressure is the only way you learn how to handle it and we were able to see certain players under pressure today. A lot of our youngsters were under that pressure for the first time and some of the decision-making was a bit wrong. Full credit to the Lions, but it’s not as if we need to reassess everything, this is an opportunity for the team to grow,” White said.

The Bulls actually played well to take a 33-20 lead but then fell asleep and made a host of costly errors.

“We were leading 33-20 with 15 minutes left but then shot ourselves in the foot by things like dropping kick-offs and not finding touch, and then there were the scrums as well. If you can’t get your set-piece right then every penalty just puts you under more pressure. I have to stress how small the margins are in this competition and you can’t afford to drop your guard.

“Although the Lions played really well, we probably lost the game because at 33-20 we did enough to win it. We scored five tries so our attack was not too bad and Nollis Marais has worked really hard on our breakdown work, which has become a point of difference for us. You don’t have to say much about Johan Grobbelaar, Duane Vermeulen and Marco van Staden, but a lot of other guys are also making the right decisions at the rucks,” White said.

 

The Bulls were able to discover their inner mongrel at Ellis Park on Saturday as they hammered the Lions 30-12 in their SuperRugby match, the hosts experiencing that losing feeling in a home derby for the first time since February 2015.

The win was based on the dominance of the Bulls pack who managed to muster extraordinary levels of energy and intensity despite having to undergo the draining flight back from Argentina at the start of the week. They simply had too much grunt for an inexperienced Lions pack and having seized the advantage early in the first half, they just never surrendered the momentum.

But it was not just brute force that won the day for the Bulls forwards. They certainly seem to have up-skilled themselves and their handling and support play was excellent as the visitors chose to, sensibly, base much of their attacking efforts around close quarters, their forwards driving and passing with equal effectiveness.

It was a terrible first half for the Lions from the moment wing Aphiwe Dyantyi fumbled flyhalf Handre Pollard’s soaring up-and-under as the Bulls cleared their lines after the kick-off. For the next 40 minutes the Bulls thoroughly dominated territory and Lions coach Swys de Bruin was not exaggerating afterwards when he said “we never had the ball for the first 24 minutes and we had just one attacking opportunity in the first half”.

The one positive for the Lions was that they put in a top-class defensive effort in the first half and it took the Bulls 14 minutes to finally turn their overwhelming dominance into points. Hooker Malcolm Marx was deemed to have deliberately knocked the ball on and Pollard slotted the penalty.

The Springbok flyhalf kicked another penalty in the 27th minute after a superb build-up by the Bulls, their forwards keeping it tight, bashing away and then bringing the backline into play at just the right time. Marnus Schoeman, a perpetual nuisance at the breakdown, conceded the ruck penalty.

But the Bulls did not just play 10-man rugby at Ellis Park and their first try came on the half-hour when they were able to con the Lions defence with a deft pop-pass to Rosko Specman after a lineout, the impressive wing racing into the 22, whereafter eighthman Duane Vermeulen provided the powerful finish.

Pollard kicked another penalty three minutes before the break as the Bulls went into halftime 14-0 up, a lead which certainly did not flatter them and in fact should have been more but for some finishing touches being lacking.

It would have been silly for the Bulls to abandon what worked so well for them and they started the second half with a powerful driving maul, the brittle Lions pack conceding another penalty to Pollard.

At 17-0, the Lions were in the Valley of Death, but they showed some spirit in the second half, even though they were clearly out-muscled. Tighthead prop Carlu Sadie burrowed over for a try in the 48th minute and at times it looked like a comeback was about to start for the home side, but the Bulls defence was also given a workout and proved impressively up to the task.

A threatening Specman run was brought to an end by a high tackle, allowing Pollard to stretch the lead to 20-5 and then the outstanding hooker Schalk Brits, whose dynamism was the start of so many good things for the Bulls, earned a breakdown penalty, his flyhalf converting from 53 metres out.

The Bulls were 23-5 up going into the final quarter, but the Lions did manage to stay in the game with one more try. Schoeman burst from a ruck and loosehead prop Dylan Smith was up in support to take the try-scoring pass.

Apart from the dominance of the pack, one of the key strengths of the Bulls on Saturday was how quickly and effectively they came up to contest Pollard’s accurate tactical kicks and their final try was due to the pressure their chase exerted.

A quick lineout throw by the Lions deep inside their own 22 went horribly wrong, Pollard sized up the situation quickly and got the ball wide to fullback Warrick Gelant, who went haring off for the corner.

Pollard said after the game that the win was up there with the best he has experienced with the Bulls and nobody will argue that the visitors were hugely impressive at Ellis Park on Saturday.

Now, if they can maintain that momentum and intensity, we might just start talking about a changing of the guard in terms of South African SuperRugby supremacy.