A round where biggest losers were SA’s best team

It says a lot about where the South African Vodacom Super Rugby challenge has suddenly found itself that the best performing local team this past weekend was the one that lost by 15 points.

The DHL Stormers came second to the Blues but although you could ask whether perhaps they over-corrected from the previous week’s game against the Hurricanes, you couldn’t fault them for tempo, enterprising intent and for effort. That they dominated possession to the extent they did and still lost, in the end by a wide margin, would be freaky if you didn’t watch the game.

If you did watch the game you should have marvelled at the discipline and the defensive organisation of a Blues team that has improved out of sight from the one that has battled through the past few years.

They’ve won three games in a row now and they are building impressively. Maybe it won't happen this year, but don’t bet against them in time becoming the dominant force they were at the start of the Super Rugby era before Crusaders took over that mantle. Of course it should not be overlooked that the north islanders have brought into the Crusaders secret by the employment of Leon MacDonald, a long time Crusaders player and disciple, as their coach.

All of which brings up a point - the chasm that appears to be asserting itself again between New Zealand and South Africa in this competition. To be fair, the Stormers should have beaten both the Hurricanes and the Blues. Their pack annihilated the Hurricanes and with just a bit of attacking variation they would surely have won in Wellington.

Seven days later they neglected the pack as the main weapon and eschewed the more direct approach that has given them their successes so far this season. They needed to do it to some extent, but maybe not to the extent they did do it in Auckland. Coach Robbie Fleck says it was his team’s best performance of the season, but surely that is only the case if you are pre-occupied with playing style and not the end result.

Adding spokes to your attacking wheel is one thing, but to turn to a cricketing analogy, would you ever ask Dale Steyn to put away his bouncer when playing on a reasonably paced wicket? Nope, that would be crazy, and the Stormers should have driven their early attacking lineouts. It is what has netted them two thirds of their tries this season.

Having said all of that though, the Eden Park game was one where you had to give credit to the opposition rather than pillory the losers. With the Chiefs following up their win over the Bulls by winning an away game in Buenos Aires, there are now no weak teams in the New Zealand conference.

Okay, the Hurricanes and Highlanders are arguably not as good as they were, and the one thing that may differ this year in the Kiwi conference is that it will be a lot more one-sided. The Crusaders, as they showed by beating the next best team, the Hurricanes, by 24 points in their own back-yard, are in a league of their own.

The defeat to the Waratahs was always seen as an aberration, and that was what it was. On another crazy Super Rugby weekend when it came to the banker in the prediction game, the Waratahs were in turn beaten by the Sunwolves, who are becoming dangerous everywhere they play except Singapore.

But back the Kiwis. The Crusaders are way out front, but the other four teams are all pretty steady. We don’t know if we can say that about the South African challenge. All the teams that were playing went into the weekend under pressure and they remain under pressure.

The team most under pressure, and slowly tipping towards crisis point, is the Sharks. They’ve now lost two home games. Not just home games, but derbies. You can’t do that and expect to challenge for top honours. The Lions have also lost a home derby, the Bulls have won two away and the Stormers one. The Stormers are under pressure to beat the Reds in Brisbane this week but if they do get it right they will still be in a satisfactory position given that they do have a good home record and play the bulk of their matches in the second half of the competition at Newlands.

For the Sharks it is a different story. They’ve played four home games and lost two. More than that, it is becoming more apparent with each game that they are in desperate need of some kind of overhaul in either selection or approach, or both. The latter is most likely. The Sharks are just too pedestrian in their execution and predictable and it is the reason they dominated much of the game against the Bulls and still lost.

A draw would actually have been the fairest result in Durban, not because the Sharks deserved more reward, but because the Bulls didn’t really deserve any reward. Neither team deserved to get anything out of what frankly was a horrible 80 minutes that was stretched into much more than that by the continuous and interminable refereeing/TMO consultations that helped turn what should have been an exciting game into a bit of a yawn.

Not that the refereeing should be blamed for that. The skill levels of both teams were abdominable, and while those of us who were at Jonsson King’s Park will vouch for the fact that it was humid, that can’t be used as a perennial excuse for professional rugby players. Let’s not forget that the Sharks train in those conditions so should be used to it.

The net result of the bumbling performances from both sides is that the Bulls, because they won, might have managed to restore some of the confidence that was lost the previous week. Maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on them. It was inevitable after the mauling they took from the Chiefs that there would some psychological hang-over. That they won a difficult away game, regardless of how it was achieved, should restore some equilibrium.

The Sharks though have it all to do. Curwin Bosch at flyhalf would be a good start if they want to introduce a bit of unpredictability and X-factor, but they now may be facing a crisis at hooker following the much publicised wrestling/boxing match between Akker van der Merwe and Schalk Brits. It is hard to see how Van der Merwe can escape lengthy sanction, and the Sharks simply have no experienced hookers left.

Ja dis bietjie van 'n kopkrap een?

Kyk dit kan wees dat hy praat van die tipe rugby wat die Stormers, Sharks en Bulle die naweek gespeel het, maar ek dink al 3 spanne was maar ewe swak. Daai Sharks vs Bulle wedstryd was wragtag een van die swakste wedstryde wat ek in 'n lang tyd gekyk het, dink net hoe die NZ en Aussies gevoel het wat tot 2 uur in die oggend moes wakkerbly om daarna te kyk. 6-3 halftyd, magtag, dis pynlik

Daai drie dinge is belangrik vir goeie rugby. 

jip, mens kan byvoeg spankeuses en uitvoering van die wedstrydplan