The Springbok management team will gather in Cape Town on Monday morning at the start of the first national alignment camp of the year with a fresh reminder of the magnitude of task that lies ahead of them, but also comfortable both with the playing talent and leadership available to them.
The reminder that there is a massive stumbling block to their quest to remain No 1 for the next few years and cap it with a three-peat in Rugby World Cup titles in Australia in 2027 came in the two hours that followed the Hollywoodbets Sharks win over the Emirates Lions that ended a highly competitive derby phase of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship league season.
As has become customary in South African derbies, with only the occasional aberration like the previous week’s shock result in Johannesburg, the Durban game was decided by a fine margin, as was the South African Shield. The Sharks’ bonus-point win enabled them to go ahead of the DHL Stormers and clinch local bragging rights, but it was a close-run thing.
France’s statement win over Ireland in Dublin in what most regard as the Six Nations decider wasn’t a close run thing. The final score was 42-27 to the visitors, but it was 42-13 heading into the final seven minutes and that was a measure of the French superiority on the day. The England win over France changed the pre-tournament narrative slightly but this result erased any question marks over France’s ability at national level to embrace the free-ranging style of the French clubs that are dominating Europe.
France have been through a tough two years as they shake off the memory of their quarterfinal exit to South Africa at their own World Cup, but they’ve regrouped now and as the Dublin game showed, when they put it together, they play rugby from another planet.
DURBAN GAME WAS GOOD CONSIDERING CONDITIONS
It was certainly a step up from what we saw at Kings Park, but then that’s what you’d expect when you compare international rugby to franchise/club rugby. What we saw in the Durban game though wasn’t bad at all, not when you consider the sauna-like conditions the game was played in.
If you want top quality entertainment, you shouldn’t be scheduling games for 2pm in Durban in the summer, yet the players of both teams made a good fist of it. In the process, as was the case with several of the other tight derbies that have been played since the nail-biting first one between the two coastal teams at the end of November, some individual players made their own statements.
Leading the list of challengers for a Bok starting spot if you look back at the derby phase as a whole would probably be Lions scrumhalf Morne van den Berg. He was at it again at Kings Park, this time lined up against Grant Williams whereas the previous week it was another Bok in Jaden Hendrikse. That he was made the official man of the match in a game his team lost was an indicator of how good he was. And how good he has been, for he came into the game with a big rap after his brilliance of the previous week at Emirates Airlines.
There were other players who also made statements. Sharks flank Phepsi Buthelezi had a decent game and is starting to look more of an international fit, while Francois Venter in the Sharks midfield played possibly his best game for the franchise and in doing so reminding us why he has played for his country. Jurenzo Julius and Ethan Hooker are stars of the future. Yaw Penxe also reminded us why he was earmarked as a future Bok when he was playing for the Southern Kings.
On the Lions' side, there have been standout performers too, not just Van den Berg, and it was a pity Jarod Cairns had to leave the field with what looked like a rib injury.
KOLISI WOULD HAVE MADE RASSIE SMILE
No-one was more influential in determining the result of the game though than Siya Kolisi and while Bok coach Rassie Erasmus would perhaps have changed his mood slightly once he’d watched the Dublin game, what happened in Durban certainly should have had him smiling.
It was a case of Kolisi flexing his muscles in the same week that Erasmus had told a press conference that he would stick with the double World Cup-winning leader as his captain just as long as he is good enough. That he is good enough right now is beyond dispute and Kolisi, at 33, is arguably playing the best rugby of his career.
The loose-forward, who on his Sharks form is looking more and more like No 8 is his rightful home, created one and scored the other when the Sharks scored two late tries in the 38-14 defeat in Johannesburg. It wasn’t long after Kolisi had come onto the field and he did bring good impact in that game.
In Durban, he was on the field from the start and it wasn’t just the fact that in the first three Sharks tries he was the creator in the first and the scorer of the other two that should have got Erasmus buzzing. Instead, it was his all-round play, defensively and as a carrier and link, his work-rate, that helped lift the players around him.
“Siya hadn’t played for a while and he came in and did a great job this week running the team,” said coach John Plumtree afterwards.
“It’s great for him to get a couple of tries and I thought his little pass on the edge, when Grant Williams scored his try, was top quality. And then he won the race around the corner from a midfield ruck. He just showed his experience and did really well.”
The Sharks would have lost the Kings Park game had they started as flat as they had the week before, but with Kolisi in such inspirational form they hit the game with all guns blazing. They really should have put the match away before halftime and, given that the humidity and heat were always going to dictate that the fast tempo start was not going to be sustained for the whole match, their failure to capitalise on that momentum looked likely to prove costly.
SHARKS WIN CLUTCH MOMENT AGAIN
It didn’t in the end due to the Sharks again winning the clutch moments, something that has become a trend for them this season and is a measure of their progress. This time it was Jaden Hendrikse, playing off the bench, who kicked the winning penalty, although admittedly he almost botched it with his quick tap in a kickable position, his miss of an easy conversion and ultimately the winning kick also came in off the post.
“It was a war of attrition. One thing written on the board this week was, ‘Who is prepared to go the hardest for the longest?’ And I’m pleased that we hung in and found a way,” said Plumtree before adding that he was pleased that a young player like Nick Hatting was able to feature as a try scorer at such a crucial moment.
“It was great work from Nick getting over the line, he’s a good young player coming through.
“I love those moments. You get a big game like this and you’ve got a good young player for the future who scores a crucial try, so well done to him.”
Plumtree was referring to the Sharks try that brought the Sharks level with the Lions after they’d gone behind and it looked like the momentum and the Shield was slipping away from the Sharks. The conversion that would have put the Sharks ahead was missed, but Jaden Hendrikse made up for that miss with a later successful penalty.
DERBY SEASON MARKED BY FINE MARGINS
It has been that sort of season in the derbies, and if anyone does want to reflect back on the Shield and how it was won and lost, they are likely to stumble across several key moments and opportunities that weren’t taken in games of fine margins.
For instance, had Manie Libbok not produced that little knock-on at the beginning of what proved an amazing sustained attack that put him over at the death in Durban, or alternatively had the TMO been less vigilant and thorough, the Stormers would have won there. There again, the return game between the sides was really close too and the Sharks were winning it with a few minutes to go.
Then there was the Durban derby against the Sharks which was also in the balance until the final whistle and a game in which Bulls director of rugby Jake White rightly felt his team shot themselves in their own feet. Roll forward to February, and the north/south derby in Cape Town, and it was Clayton Blommetjies’ missed conversion that stood between the Stormers and victory. In the return game, the Bulls could have kicked for a draw towards the end of the wet weather game at Loftus and had they managed a share of the spoils they would have led the Shield log going into the final round and not the Stormers.
SAME COMMITMENT NEEDED AGAINST FRENCH TEAMS
All of that is laid out to illustrate how competitive the local rivalry has been. White said it after the Cape Town derby against his team - “It was like a test match”. The key, of course, is for the local players to lift themselves in games against overseas teams, particularly in the games against the top French sides in the EPCR competitions, where the SA challenge has tended to be poor.
For those players in the very wide group that Erasmus is starting out with this year, the litmus test in franchise level going forward should come when they play the French sides. Do the Boks want to go into the next World Cup with a group of players that has become used to being thrashed by French clubs? I think not.
The France under-20 team comprehensively outplayed their Ireland counterparts in the junior version of the Six Nations, thus confirming what we have seen from the French club sides - there’s a lot of talent coming through. And on Saturday their big win was achieved in a game where they were without the injured Antoine Dupont for most of it.
VODACOM UNITED RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP RESULT (R12)
Hollywoodbets Sharks 25 Emirates Lions 22
Final SA Shield log
Hollywoodbets Sharks 19 points
DHL Stormers 18 points
Vodacom Bulls 17 points
Emirates Lions 10 points