Ken Borland

One of the positive aspects of forcing South African franchises to compete in both the United Rugby Championship and the Currie Cup at the same time has been the way it has opened up an avenue to the professional game for those late developers who would previously have been stuck in club rugby and whose talent would ultimately have gone to waste.

It has also meant Griquas and the Pumas are now way more competitive in the Currie Cup, both being strong contenders for the semi-finals.

Surely no-one would disagree that the broader and more far-reaching the South African pipeline is, the better it will ultimately be for the Springboks. When one considers the roads players like Makazole Mapimpi and Marco van Staden took to the national team, one does wonder just how much great talent is still going to waste. Are they just the absolute flukes who made it through to the big time?

Drawing players from club rugby is something the Bulls have managed quite successfully, given how they go into the final weekend of Currie Cup round-robin play on the top of the log, while also competing in a URC semi-final in Dublin on Friday night.

But, as praiseworthy as their efforts have been, that should not detract from the fact that next season, when all four URC franchises have an extra European competition to contend with, the situation is going to become even harder to manage.

Both the Bulls director of rugby, Jake White, and Sharks head coach Sean Everitt have called for SA Rugby to release the franchises from their player caps. At present, South Africa’s top four teams can only contract 50 players and cannot spend more than R60 million on contracts.

While the intention – preventing unions from stockpiling talent as they did in the past and forcing them to draw from the amateur ranks – is noble, 50 players is simply not enough if you have three concurrent competitions to look after.

While a R60 million salary cap already puts South Africa at a disadvantage in Europe because it translates to just £3-million – compared to the £4.2m Scottish clubs can spend, £5m for Wales and England, £6.6m for Ireland and £10m for France – it is the numbers game that needs attention most urgently.

When a team travels, they usually take between 26 and 28 players with them – the match-day 23 plus cover in specialist positions like hooker, prop and scrumhalf. That leaves just about enough contracted players for a Currie Cup match on the same weekend. Unless, of course, as the Sharks experienced last weekend and the Bulls are dealing with on Saturday, you also have injuries, which are pretty much inevitable during a rugby season.

Then there are also call-ups from national teams like the Springboks and the SA U20s …

Now that SA Rugby have secured five lucrative seats at the European table, the last thing one wants is for the South African teams to be mediocre. The Currie Cup is also far too historic and valuable a brand to be allowed to become not much more than a club competition.

Just increasing the number of players a union can offer some sort of contract to will give the struggling coaches some breathing space. When the cap was originally introduced, South Africa was still in Super Rugby and the Currie Cup generally only really got going once that competition was over.

So there was no need for such massive squad numbers and the development of fringe players suffered as a result.

That is no longer the case and it is time to ease this particular burden on the unions.

For Duanne Olivier, Monday’s first day of the second Test against India felt like “a new debut” and he gave credit to his fellow pacemen for their efforts in helping to turn a slow start into ultimately a successful opening day for the Proteas as they bowled the tourists out for just 202.

Olivier missed the first Test as he built himself back to peak conditioning following a bout of Covid, but on Monday he was back sharing the new ball with Kagiso Rabada, playing Test cricket for the first time since February 2019, when he took a Kolpak contract in England.

But things did not go well in the first hour for either Olivier, whose first four erratic overs went for 18 runs, or South Africa, as India reached 36/0.

But the drinks break helped the Proteas focus their effort and thereafter they squeezed India and claimed 10 wickets in 49 overs. Olivier and Rabada took three wickets each and young Marco Jansen claimed the other four; Lungi Ngidi bowled as well as any of them but ended with 0/26 in 11 overs.

“It felt like a new debut for me and I was very nervous,” Olivier admitted. “But we just wanted to try and have good energies and put pressure on the batsmen. Lungi and Marco did a superb job to create that pressure.

“And then the whole unit did it. It was a good day for the bowling unit as a whole. We would have taken 202 all out any day. The message from the coach was to stick to the basics and our processes and then reap the rewards.

“Lungi bowled exceptionally well but did not get the rewards, it was just one of those days for him. I am still trying to bowl fuller at good pace, but a couple of balls were too floaty. I will try to do better in the second innings,” Olivier said.

The Proteas batsmen then reached 35/1 at stumps and Olivier is optimistic they can cash in on the second day.

“If we want to be hyper-critical then we probably gave India 20-30 too many runs. The pitch is a bit different to how it is in domestic cricket, there’s not as much grass. It is harder and it will speed up.

“It was very hot today and it will start deteriorating in the second innings and then it might spin. We are 1-0 down, that is the reality, and of course we want to win the series.

“But as a team we can’t look too far ahead, otherwise our focus is not where it needs to be and you can get distracted. Tomorrow is a new day and we will break our processes down into smaller bits,” Olivier said.

The plucky scrappers from Kimberley tore into their defensive duties but ultimately the big city boys of the Sharks prevailed as they beat Griquas 30-16 in their hard-fought opening round Currie Cup fixture at Tafel Lager Park on Saturday.

It was not the most clinical display by the Sharks, but they were more composed at the key moments and better at converting the vital opportunities that came their way. And the key to their victory was probably the two tries they scored in two minutes in the third quarter that gave them a healthy 25-6 lead after they went into halftime 10-6 up.

The first try came through slick work by wing Werner Kok, who grubbered down the line for centre Jeremy Ward to dot down; the second was through a quickfire counter-attack as the Sharks attacked down the left wing, scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse was up in support as usual and he sent lock Hyron Andrews galloping away for the try.

But Griquas fought back. Wing Eduan Keyter finished brilliantly through a kick through by centre Andre Swarts and then made the break that led to his fellow wing Daniel Kasande rounding off a brilliant counter-attack. But the Griquas’ effort, feisty as it was, lacked polish and their ill-discipline and poor finishing cost them in the end.

The Sharks were under pressure in bot the scrums and lineouts, which made it difficult for them to produce sizzling rugby. But a rolling maul try by replacement hooker Kerron van Vuuren in the 79^th minute saw them escape from the frying pan with a bonus point that certainly was a bonus.

Scorers

Griquas – Try: Eduan Keyter. Penalties: George Whitehead (2).

Sharks – Tries: Phendulani Buthelezi, Jeremy Ward, Hyron Andrews, Kerron van Vuuren. Conversions: Boeta Chamberlain (2). Penalty: Chamberlain. Drop goal: Chamberlain.

Proteas coach Mark Boucher said he was pleased with the bravery of the South African batting line-up despite their faltering performances in the T20 series which saw them crash to 65 for seven in the decisive third match on Sunday and ultimately lose by four wickets.

The Proteas only made a match of the third T20 thanks to David Miller’s tremendous 85 not out off 45 balls, one of the best innings of his long career, taking them to 164-8. Miller’s defiant knock was only South Africa’s second half-century of the series with opener Reeza Hendricks being the only other batsman to pass 50. Miller was also the only Proteas batsman to score more than 100 runs in the series.

“We’ve played some good cricket this series, been in strong positions but just not been able to pull it off. The second game [which they won by six wickets] is the brand of cricket we want to play. we showed more intent, especially with the bat. We need to be more proactive and not reactive, we need the bravery we showed in that second match.

“But today we needed to be more smarter, although we were in trouble and we still managed to get a decent total, we were in the game until the last couple of overs. But losing four wickets in three overs in this game put us under lots of pressure. But David Miller played a great knock and it was good to see him back in the runs,” Boucher said.

The fact that South Africa were in the game defending 165 was largely thanks to the outstanding spin bowling of Tabraiz Shamsi, who took a career-best four for 25. But from needing 47 off the last five overs when Shamsi finished his four overs, Pakistan sped to victory with eight balls remaining and batsmen seven and eight at the crease.

South Africa’s quick bowlers were poor, with Dwaine Pretorius conceding 33 runs in three overs, Lutho Sipamla 23 in two and Andile Phehlukwayo having 37 runs bashed off his 2.4 overs. And it is not an isolated incident because over the last couple of years South Africa have conceded the second-most runs in the last four overs of T20 Internationals.

“We’re bowling a lot of yorkers in training and the death bowling is something we continue to work at. There was a lot of dew tonight so it was difficult and Pakistan’s death bowling wasn’t particularly good either to be fair. We want quite a few options for the death and the only way that is going to happen is by putting guys in that situation.

“Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje have shown in the IPL that they are fantastic at the death and so we’ve tried out one or two other options in this series. The way Dwaine Pretorius bowled in the second game was fantastic and it’s something we will keep working on and hopefully get better at, we’re working hard on it in training,” Boucher said.