The Carling Currie Cup resumes on Wednesday with an appetising triple header that will both offer the various teams a chance to make a telling statement and the individuals involved an opportunity to either regain confidence or further their ambitions.
The regain confidence aspect obviously brings to mind Curwin Bosch, who will be the focus of attention when the Cell C Sharks host DHL Western Province at Hollywoodbets Kings Park in the late game. Bosch hasn’t been a first choice at the Sharks for a while now and hasn’t been on the field yet this season, and while the official excuse for that is that the flyhalf was carrying a minor injury, he has apparently been participating fully in training.
His lack of game time might well be better explained by what Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee said when addressing the media at a media weekend in Durban last weekend. Coetzee spoke about Bosch’s loss of form which naturally translates into a loss of confidence, and also the pressure has been under in recent years at the Durban franchise.
SHARKS CEO EXPLAINS CURWIN PLAN
“We are working with Curwin on helping him regain his confidence and getting his head space right,” said Coetzee.
We are working with Curwin on helping him regain his confidence and getting his head space right,” said Coetzee.
“With the British and Irish Lions defeat and also the loss in the Currie Cup final, Curwin lost a bit of confidence. But we are looking to get him back in the team, even though he thinks his future might lie outside of the Sharks. We have given him game time to get his head right and if he stays with us then that would be cool.
“Curwin is an unbelievable rugby player who has won games for us. But sport is cruel. He is a great kid thought and it is important we look after him,” added the Sharks CEO.
PERFECT OPPORTUNITY
The Currie Cup, with slightly less of an intense focus on it, is the perfect competition for someone like Bosch to regain confidence, and also the perfect platform for the talented No 8 Sikhumbuzo Notshe to make his first steps back onto the playing field after an absence of nine months. There are players in the WP side that are doing the same thing that Notshe is doing, with David Meihuizen playing for the first time since the middle of last year and promising flyhalf Kade Wolhuter making his first appearance since last May off the bench.
Back in the day when the Currie Cup was the only big thing in South African rugby, players who had lost form or been injured would use the club game as their vehicle to get them right. I can well remember very early in my rugby writing career having to keep tabs on a College Rovers second team game in Durban because it was Joel Stransky’s return from an early season injury lay-off. Players back then could play themselves in and out of the provincial teams by virtue of what they did at club level.
Those times have changed and of course the club game has mostly been in hiatus since the arrival of the pandemic. More importantly in the professional era where the provincial and regional teams rely less on club players and instead have large contracted squads, the feeder competitions have mostly been either on hold or truncated into a very short time space too.
REFERENCE TO FEEDER ROLE IS NOT NEGATIVE COMMENT
There has been a lot of talk about the Currie Cup becoming more of a feeder competition, and certainly it is hard to deny that. It is not necessarily a negative comment to say that, and it might well be that the competition, running as it is this year concurrently with the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, is what might well in the long term give the South African teams in the international competition an edge. You could call it the South African secret weapon if you like.
Depth can be created and tested in a way that the overseas teams can’t as they don’t have a separate tier competition to give their players game time in. If they need to experiment, if they need to give players opportunities or a chance to build game confidence, they have to do it by rotating their URC selections. Which isn’t always ideal.
And looking through the three franchise teams in action on Wednesday, depth is something they certainly do have. While the Vodacom Bulls pack that plays the Toyota Cheetahs in what should be a pulsating showdown at Loftus in the middle game on Wednesday is less experience and formidable than the one that mauled WP two weeks ago, they do still look a strong team.
Cornal Hendricks captaining the Bulls side brings the experience and also offers the Springbok, who was a star player for the Bulls in last year’s Currie Cup, a gilt-edged opportunity to show that he should still be a prominent part fo the URC campaign. He was dropped for the most recent URC game against the Emirates Lions.
The Cheetahs have only played once so far in this Currie Cup season, which was their victory over Tafel Lager Griquas in the first round, but they should be among the leading Currie Cup contenders given their historical strength and the fact they are not watered down by URC participation. And of course they have two very influential and experienced players who will rub some of their aura off on both teammates and opponents in the form of Ruan Pienaar and Frans Steyn.
MOMENT OF TRUTH FOR SOME
The strength of the Cheetahs challenge, at least on paper, means that in many ways this game is a moment of truth for Gert Smal’s men after their impressive wins in the two opening games with teams that were more of a mix-and-match of their Currie Cup and URC collectives.
There is also a lot of importance to the participants in the early game between Tafel Lager Griquas and the Airlink Pumas in Kimberley. Those two teams would be part of a compacted franchise system for South African rugby if that plan ever came to pass and are constantly trying to press their claims to have a place at a bigger table.
As the two country unions in the upper echelon of the Currie Cup, they are motivated when they play each other as the winner usually becomes the recognised challenger from that level of the South African game. Last year it was Griquas who carried the country flag by making the semifinal but the Pumas weren’t too far behind and have a strong squad.
After losing to the Cheetahs on the opening weekend and then by one point away to the Sharks, it is Griquas who are under most pressure going into the game.
Wednesday’s Carling Currie Cup matches (all on SuperSport)
Tafel Lager Griquas v Airlink Pumas (Kimberley, 15.30)
Referee: Aimee Barrett-Theron.
Vodacom Bulls v Toyota Cheetahs (Pretoria, 17.45)
Referee: Paul Mente
Cell C Sharks v DHL Western Province (Durban, 20.00)
Referee: Griffin Colby