Ken Borland

It’s been an absolute age since Munster made such a poor start to their season, but the Bulls also produced their worst performance in a long time last weekend, so their United Rugby Championship clash at Thomond Park on Saturday night is going to be a tense affair.

Munster are currently a lowly 12^th in the URC standings, having lost three of their four games. They have never finished outside the top-10 of the competition in all its previous guises.

The Bulls were hammered 35-21 by Glasgow Warriors last weekend, their first loss this season.

“Munster have not had the best start,” Bulls backline coach Chris Rossouw acknowledged on Tuesday, “but they still have very good players. Plus their Ireland A players will be back from South Africa.

“They have a very good record in Limerick and halfbacks Conor Murray and Ben Healy control the game very well.

“Damian de Allende is a big departure, he is sorely missed by them, you can see that already. But they play the same way as last year with a strong forward pack,” Rossouw said.

The Bulls have also obviously not been at their best, but may well be boosted by the international-class services of flyhalf Johan Goosen and wing Sbu Nkosi this weekend.

Rossouw spoke of the need for them to be able to adapt better to setbacks in the heat of the moment, which is not always easy to do for a young side.

“It was obviously a big disappointment against Glasgow, but if you’re off your game then you will obviously get big points against you, like in Super Rugby. We did not get things right and got a big hiding,” Rossouw said.

“What was frustrating was that we just could not convert. Our maul got disrupted and, although we’re not meant to say it, probably illegally. They also attacked us at the breakdown.

“We’ve cleared up some issues with the referee and we need to do things differently in the maul and sharpen up at the rucks. You can’t have that many opportunities and not convert.

“In the heat of the moment, you need that ability to adapt and make plans. We try and incorporate that into our training, constantly trying to find a different way and how to vary our play,” Rossouw said.

SOUTHBROOM, KwaZulu-Natal – One of the premises of playing in a pro-am event for the professionals is that it allows them an early look at the course and the conditions before their proper tournament, and Hennie O’Kennedy certainly made full use of the opportunity to play in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series San Lameer Pro-Am by winning the competition on Wednesday with amateur partner Tyler Whittaker.

The 26-year-old O’Kennedy says he now knows all about the San Lameer Country Club layout ahead of their Sunshine Tour event there starting on Thursday. And the Stellenbosch Golf Club representative has played it both in the wind on Wednesday and in calmer weather on the first day.

“I expected nothing less than a lot of wind from San Lameer, but it was a beautiful day yesterday,” O’Kennedy said. “I didn’t play last week, so it’s been really nice to come in early here and open up what will be a seven-week stretch for me with a pro-am win.

“Today San Lameer just gave us a taste of what she’s made of and it was really fun. It meant you had to hit a lot of different shots and I enjoyed it. It’s a phenomenal course.

“There’s a lot of water and it’s been called the Blue Monster of South Africa. There’s quite a lot of uphills and downhills as well, so you need to be creative, which makes it more fun.

“If it were flat, it would be simple, but even the greens here, you have to work with the slopes. You really need to stick to your game-plan and really commit to your shots. Fortunately my game-plan seems to be good,” O’Kennedy said cheerfully.

O’Kennedy’s 11^th position on the Luno Order of Merit marks him out as someone to watch as the Sunshine Tour builds towards all the mega-tournaments at the end of the year.

He made an impression at the start of the season with three top-10 finishes, before dropping back into the middle of the field in the middle of the year.

“I made a little change with my putter and I reckon that’s why there was a bit of a dip. But now I’ve changed back to my Moneymaker and hopefully that will help me get back to my best.

“Hopefully this week will put me back on track for the next seven weeks and then the co-sanctioned tournaments that follow,” O’Kennedy said.

His playing partner Whittaker is one of the founders of the Custom Apparel golfwear company that sponsors O’Kennedy and is a partner of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series.

O’Kennedy is a tall, physically-imposing person who stands out in a crowd, but the funky, tropical-themed golf shirts he wore from CA made him even more of a landmark.

“I never expected this, but we dovetailed amazingly well. We play at San Lameer now and then on golf tour, and it is amazing, a really tight set-up.

“The wind was way harder today, but we made it work for ourselves and just played the right shot at the right time,” Whittaker, who hails from Durban and plays off a 5.4 handicap, said.

“I could not have asked for a better partner than Tyler,” O’Kennedy said. “It was  nice to meet him because he has really helped me out with clothing, and he’s a solid golfer and you could not ask for a better person.”

The unavailability of Rassie van der Dussen due to injury made the selectors’ job an easy one when it came to choosing South Africa’s squad for the T20 World Cup, but the obvious headache of how to fit in both the captain, Temba Bavuma, and Reeza Hendricks, the player of the series against both England and Ireland, is now to the fore.

Van der Dussen broke his finger in the second Test against England and his absence has allowed Bavuma to return from the torn elbow ligament that kept him out of the entire UK tour, while powerhouse batsmen Rilee Rossouw and Tristan Stubbs keep their places.

Hendricks has been in the type of form that makes him all but undroppable, with four half-centuries and a 42 in his last five innings for the Proteas, and he has continued that red-hot form with 257 runs at an average of 85.66 and a strike-rate of 154.81 for the Central Gauteng Lions in the Namibia Global T20 they won on Monday.

But convenor of selectors Victor Mpitsang said on Tuesday that he could not envisage a situation where the Proteas would leave out their captain at the World Cup.

“Rassie broke his finger in the last Test and needs surgery, which will leave him with up to six weeks of recovery. The timings are just not right, which is why he was excluded,” Mpitsang said at the squad announcement at Cricket South Africa’s offices on Tuesday.

“Temba has been playing in Namibia over the last week, he is well-recovered, and good to go. I think he will open the batting, that’s been his role for the last year or two.

“Previously, Reeza opened in India and Temba was at three, but Rilee has now done a great job at three against England. We will have to see how we balance the top-order, to get the best out of them.

“It would be a tough decision to leave out your captain, I can’t see that happening. But nothing has been decided yet and it’s so difficult to make calls now,” Mpitsang said.

The 15-man World Cup squad and the three travelling reserves – Andile Phehlukwayo, Marco Jansen and Bjorn Fortuin – will play a three-match series in India that ends on October 4.

Three ODIs will then be played over the next week, for which Janneman Malan and Phehlukwayo come in for Stubbs and Rossouw, before the Proteas leave for Australia and their opening World Cup match against a qualifier in Hobart on October 24.

Mpitsang believes the Proteas have an attack to adapt to whatever conditions confront them.

“There are good headaches to have because it means we have a lot of bases covered. We have definitely selected with consideration for the pitches and we feel the 15 will cover conditions well.

“We will make adjustments when we get there. We can make the right calls for the conditions we face, we have got the right options.

“We have two spinners and Aiden Markram, a left-armer in Wayne Parnell if we need that. The crucial thing is we’ve got bowlers who can take wickets, because that’s the only way to restrict teams in T20.

“We are more than capable of putting other teams under pressure and I’m excited by the brand of cricket we’ve played for the last few months,” Mpitsang said.

Squad: Quinton de Kock, Temba Bavuma, Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi, Lungi Ngidi, Heinrich Klaasen, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Rilee Rossouw.

Bulls Currie Cup coach Gert Smal has made clear how disappointed he is in how the once-great competition has been “devalued” and it seems sponsors Carling Black Label are also concerned about the “loss of prestige” in what was once one of the strongest brands in South African rugby.

The Bulls, trying to contend in two tournaments at the same time, made it to the semi-finals with their mix-and-match squads, but eventually the URC had to take priority and they went down 30-19 to Griquas last weekend at Loftus Versfeld.

Smal’s point was that unless the top players in the country are involved, the Currie Cup becomes devalued. And next year it is likely to be even worse because the top five franchises will have an extra European competition to contend with.

Arne Rust, the Carling Black Label Brand Director, told The Citizen the situation with the URC and the Currie Cup taking place concurrently was not ideal.

“It’s been hard to manage and it seems the Currie Cup has lost a bit of prestige. We would love to get that back,” Rust said.

“We would like to see the importance of the Currie Cup heightened rather than it becoming a development tournament.

“We’re not worried there aren’t any Springboks, but we would like the premier local players to take part, we want to see the next generation of Springboks in the Currie Cup.

“The possibility of it becoming an U23 competition is a question we’re not sure about, we want the Currie Cup to be a showcase, to still feature the premier players,” Rust said.

With the European season running from September to June, and with 2023 World Cup arrangements also coming into the reckoning, there is a growing groundswell of opinion that perhaps the Currie Cup should be played at a different time.

With the Springboks usually off-limits for the Currie Cup anyway, there should be a way that SA Rugby can fit the famous event into the second half of the year.

“If SA Rugby can create more daylight for the Currie Cup then that is always good for us,” Rust said. “We are going to have some detailed calendar conversations in future.

“We would like to see the Currie Cup come into its own, it has such a rich heritage and history. We would love it to be more esteemed and prestigious,” Rust said.

With Smal using words such as “sacred” to describe the Currie Cup, and suggesting SA rugby should “rather put the famous trophy away in a glass box or a museum unless they restore its respect”, it is clear there is still a strong emotional connection to the tournament.

*Rugby fans wishing to select their team for the Carling Champions Match against Italy A on July 2 in Gqeberha can still do so by buying a 750ml quart or 500ml can of Black Label and follow the instructions on the pack, or go to carlingblacklabel.co.za or use Facebook Messenger.