Ken Borland

The SuperRugby season kicks off on Friday with Australian teams getting the competition started. The five South African franchises join the fray next weekend with several burning questions still to be answered. Foremost of these is whether the Southern Kings have procured enough firepower to avoid totally embarrassing themselves and the South African Rugby Union administrators who promoted them with scant regard for on-field performance.

The Southern Kings have brought a dozen new players to Port Elizabeth, but they can best be described as SuperRugby journeymen. Even though hooker Bandise Maku and centres Waylon Murray and Andries Strauss are all Springboks, they are not what one would term star players capable of dominating at SuperRugby level. The Kings have also signed two seasoned Argentinean internationals in scrumhalf Nicolas Vergallo and flank Tomas Leonardi, as well as former Toulouse hooker Virgile Lacombe.

The role of captain Luke Watson, of whom opinions vary from sulky trouble-causer to inspiring team-man and leader, is going to be very important in melding such a disparate group of players into a team. Massive expenditure is no guarantee of success in a sport that depends so greatly on team cohesion and attitude.

The Kings have also incurred the wrath of many South African fans who believe their inclusion in the competition is purely on political grounds and the pressure will be on them from the outset.

All eyes will be on their opening game when they host the Western Force, who are also trying to find their feet in SuperRugby. Then, before heading off on their overseas tour, the Kings face daunting meetings with the Sharks and defending champions the Chiefs.

The other game the Kings could possibly target in search of that morale-boosting first victory will be against the Rebels in Melbourne on 13 April, but that will be the last game of their overseas tour and whether they will still be on two feet remains to be seen.

On the positive side, this year provides an ideal opportunity for talented players such as flank Daniel Adongo, flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis, centre Ronnie Cooke and lock Steven Sykes to make their mark on this semi-international stage.

The Bulls will be looking to build on their achievement in making last year’s playoffs as they showed there is still life in the union after so many of yesterday’s heroes moved on.

Pierre Spies’s team will include two new faces in utility back Lionel Mapoe and talented young lock Paul Willemse, but the Pretoria faithful will be relying on remaining stalwarts such as Morne Steyn, Spies, Flip van der Merwe, Francois Hougaard, Werner Kruger, Chiliboy Ralepelle, Dewald Potgieter, Deon Stegmann, Wynand Olivier, Akona Ndungane and Zane Kirchner for bigger and better things in 2013.

None more so than Steyn whose eye will still be on the Springbok number 10 jersey. He can count on Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer still valuing his experience and goal-kicking ability, but he needs to play more like the dashing flyhalf of 2008/9 than a gout-ridden has-been turning out for the Blikkiesdorp over-35s.

Loose forward CJ Stander has moved on to new pastures, which counts as a big loss for the Bulls, but the likes of lock Juandre Kruger and backs JJ Engelbrecht, Francois Venter and Bjorn Basson are ready to take the next step and dominate at SuperRugby level.

The Cheetahs will be well aware that their neighbours in Gauteng are smarting over their exclusion from SuperRugby and the way their former allies in Bloemfontein helped betray them. So they will be nervous going into the SuperRugby season, desperate to avoid finishing last in the South African conference and having to face the Lions in a promotion/relegation series.

Their build-up to the campaign has not been good, with the final bell having rung on Juan Smith’s superb career and another favourite, prop Coenie Oosthuizen, still taking the first steps on his way back to recovery. The front row has been one of the Cheetahs’ premier areas of strength in recent years, but with WP Nel and Marcel van der Merwe both having left, coach Naka Drotske is a worried man, with his job under some pressure as well.

Twenty-year-old Johan Goosen is a potential match-winner for the Cheetahs and a popular choice for the Springbok number 10 jersey – he will be a key man for Drotske.

Captain Adriaan Strauss is a respected leader and brilliant hooker, but the state of the rest of the tight five will be the key factor in determining whether Goosen and other exciting backs like Sarel Pretorius, Robert Ebersohn, Johann Sadie, Raymond Rhule and Willie le Roux are able to play with the flair they are famous for.

The Cheetahs also have a bad draw: they have just a solitary home game against the Sharks before they head off overseas, their opening tour matches being against the defending champions, the Chiefs, and then the Highlanders at the House of Pain in Dunedin.

The Stormers topped the log in 2012 and are the Currie Cup champions, and there is plenty of optimism in Cape Town that they are heading into another golden age of Western Province rugby to rival that of the late 1990s/early 2000s. The SuperRugby title is the one they really want and they certainly have the players to become the second South African franchise to claim the trophy. Though their defence was famously committed and superbly organised last year, they will need to sharpen up on their attacking skills.

Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana and Schalk Burger are household names, but they have also added some potential superstars in fullback Jaco Taute and flyhalf Elton Jantjies.

Their pack also boasts Springboks in Eben Etzebeth, Duane Vermeulen, Andries Bekker and new signing Pat Cilliers, while much is expected of loose forwards Siya Kolisi and Rynhardt Elstadt.

But items up for debate are whether they have enough depth in the tight five should injuries strike, whether scrumhalves Dewaldt Duvenhage, Nic Groom and Louis Schreuder have the star quality to get the best out of a phenomenal backline also featuring Juan de Jongh, Gio Aplon and Joe Pietersen, and when Burger will actually return to action after a succession of leg injuries.

It will be necessary for the Stormers to hit the competition running as their first three games are key away trips to conference contenders the Bulls and Sharks, followed by a meeting with the Chiefs at Newlands.

The Sharks have such a wealth of talent at their disposal across almost all positions that it is becoming inexplicable that they still haven’t managed to win a SuperRugby crown.

The only items causing some concern down Durban way will be the second row, where Franco van der Merwe is the experienced import among the greenhorns, who is going to start at hooker while Bismarck du Plessis continues his rehab from knee ligament surgery, and will Frans Steyn continue to captain while Keegan Daniel recovers from a knee injury?

A dreadfully slow start to the 2012 campaign was to blame for the Sharks only finishing sixth on the log and scraping into the playoffs. Travelling to Australia, Cape Town and then to New Zealand was a bridge too far for them and they will be mindful of the need to earn home playoffs this time round.

Although the Currie Cup ultimately ended in a shock defeat to Western Province in the final, the potential was plain to see in the likes of lock Anton Bresler, scrumhalf Cobus Reinach, centres Paul Jordaan and Tim Whitehead, wing Sibusiso Sithole and fullback Louis Ludik.

The Sharks loose trio was arguably the best in the competition last year and Ryan Kankowski is back from Japan to join Marcell Coetzee, Daniel, Willem Alberts, Jean Deysel and Jacques Botes.

In Butch James, the Sharks have experienced cover for Pat Lambie in the flyhalf position, while Steyn provides muscle in midfield and JP Pietersen and Lwazi Mvovo were inspirational on the wing last year.

The Sharks will also be spending the first eight weeks of the competition in South Africa, playing teams like the Stormers, Brumbies and Crusaders in Durban, so they should be in good spirits by the time they head overseas in the last week of April.

The Sharks will surely be in contention and, provided they don’t get in their own way, 2013 could be the year they finally get their hands on the SuperRugby trophy.

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The opening of Parliament in Cape Town will be on 14 February and the 2013 SuperRugby season kicks off the next day in Australia. Sometimes it’s quite hard to tell which event is more important to South Africans, but either way they are parties nobody wants to miss.

The Lions are in the unfortunate position of having been relegated from this year’s SuperRugby competition and, like many of the snubbed before them, they’ve just gone away and organised their own party instead.

While being out of SuperRugby has led to an understandable exodus of players – Grant Hattingh, Jacobie Adriaanse, Paul Willemse, Ruan Botha, Josh Strauss, Etienne Oosthuizen, Pat Cilliers, Michael Rhodes, Bandise Maku, Butch James and Waylon Murray have all moved to fresh pastures – and Elton Jantjies, Franco van der Merwe, Jaco Taute and Lionel Mapoe have signed loan agreements to play for other franchises, the Golden Lions Rugby Union (GLRU) have organised a series of 16 matches for their remaining players.

Apart from games against Russia and Samoa, there will be an overseas tour to North America, five matches against top French opposition and fixtures against all five South African SuperRugby franchises for the Lions faithful to savour.

For the supporters, the good news is that 12 of these games, including a SuperRugby promotion/relegation clash on August 3, will be played at Ellis Park.

The series of fixtures, to be called the Lions Challenge, was the only choice open to the Lions if they wanted to continue functioning as a fully professional franchise and if they were to harbour any realistic hopes of maintaining a team capable of winning promotion back into SuperRugby.

“The easy route would have been to play the blame game and look for scapegoats. But we have decided to get on with the rugby and ensure we continue to serve our stakeholders. We have to bounce back from the debacle of last year’s SuperRugby and restore the Lions family. This way coach Johan Ackermann can mould together a very good side, a core of players, who can focus on taking on that last team in SuperRugby,” GLRU president Kevin de Klerk said on Thursday at the Lions Challenge launch.

“If we had just organised a series of friendlies then half our players would no longer be here for the promotion/relegation game. The players want to test themselves against the best,” acting CEO Ruben Moggee admitted. “We also had to ensure we keep something here for our supporters and sponsors, we need to retain their loyalty and there will be 12 matches at Ellis Park. Commercially it’s very important in helping us to retain our players and in putting out content that our sponsors are willing to buy into.”

The clashes with the Cheetahs, Bulls and Kings will be played during the build-up to the SuperRugby season, while the Stormers and Sharks will only visit Ellis Park during the June break.

The North American tour will consist of three games in Irvine (California), Vancouver and Chicago between 13 and 27 April, while French powerhouses Montpellier and Grenoble will line up against the Lions in July.

The Lions Challenge has been enthusiastically received by the players, broadcasters and sponsors.

“We’re not standing before the unknown anymore, I know something big is going to happen this year. I have a feeling about this team, I’m very proud of these guys.

“It felt like the end of the world when we were relegated from an amazing competition like SuperRugby, but now we have 16 games to look forward to. The players all had three weeks off this year, instead of the usual two but, for the first time in my eight years at the Lions, everyone came back and recorded personal bests in Monday’s fitness tests. That just shows the enthusiasm in the team,” Lions captain JC Janse van Rensburg said.

According to Moggee, about 20-25% of the year’s income is derived from the sale of suites at Ellis Park and there have been only two cancellations heading into the new year.

And SuperSport has confirmed live coverage of all the games at Ellis Park, but the broadcasting of the overseas fixtures will be dependent on the Lions being able to organise a feed from those venues.

But the quality of the opposition that turns out on the day is something the Lions cannot control.

While everybody would love to see full-strength Cheetahs and Bulls sides taking on a Lions outfit that has plenty to prove, every SuperRugby team has different plans in terms of preparation and coaches Naka Drotske and Frans Ludeke might prefer to give their second-stringers a run on that particular weekend.

But as starts to a new competition go, it’s not bad convincing your two neighbours to pitch up and even the Kings, the Lions’ arch-enemies, will be coming to Ellis Park, on February 9.

The Lions Challenge will provide some fresh faces and brands of rugby for Johannesburg rugby fans and at least the team have something to keep them occupied, and match-fit, while the others are enjoying the Sanzar party next door.

“We see this as a tournament that could have a life after this year for a different team. It’s interesting for the senior players to experience new things like touring the United States, playing new opposition and learning something new from them. We are offering a new brand of rugby, a new flavour to the rugby market,” Moggee said.

Fixtures: January 19 – v Russia (Ellis Park); January 26 – v Cheetahs (Ellis Park); February 2 – v Bulls (Orlando Stadium); February 9 – v Kings (Ellis Park); February 23 – v Namibia (Windhoek); March 16 – v Mont de Marsan (Ellis Park); April 13 – v US Invitational (Irvine); April 20 – v North American Barbarians (Vancouver); April 27 – v Chicago Lions (Chicago); May 11 – v Agen (Ellis Park); June 1 – v Samoa (Ellis Park); June 8 – v French Barbarians (Ellis Park); June 15 – v Stormers (Ellis Park); June 21 – v Sharks (Ellis Park); July 12 – v Montpellier (Ellis Park); July 20 – v Grenoble (Ellis Park); July 27 – SuperRugby promotion/relegation (away); August 3 – SuperRugby promotion/relegation (Ellis Park).

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