The days of the Covid are weird times for sport and you never know what might happen next but it is likely that the Vodacom Bulls will hold onto the unique record they picked up as a consequence of the pandemic.
Two Carling Currie Cup titles in the same year, and winning two Currie Cup finals just seven months apart, was not something any team had ever managed before. And it is not something anyone is likely to do again. The Cell C Sharks were the beaten finalists both times, with the first game, the match that officially decided the 2020 competition on 30 January 2021, being by far the more momentous of the two.
It wasn’t anything to remember from an aesthetic viewpoint. Kick-a-thon was what many called it. But it was anyone’s game right up until the last minute of extra time, which was when the Bulls scored the try that finally quelled the challenge of the underdog Sharks. It was a bigger game than the second one not only because it was close, but also because it was at full strength.
The 2021 edition of the competition was rendered odd and unusual right from the outset. Forget the fact all games were played behind closed doors, that’s not what made it a strange season, but the number of games that had to be cancelled because of the pandemic and the rather distorted log that developed because of the decision initially to award four log points to both teams involved in the cancellations.
HIGH SCORING WAS THE NORM
While DHL Western Province played all their games, the Sharks had four cancellations so effectively only played eight matches in the regular season. The Sharks had four draws reflected on their record, the Bulls three and WP just one - and it was a real draw, with the Pumas fighting back late in their game at Newlands to sneak a 40-all draw.
That was a bizarre game and many of them were. Whereas the deciding game of the 2020 season saw too much kicking, the 2021 games generally lacked in terms of defence, with high scoring matches being norm the norm.
A bizarre season started in that fashion, as the first round coincided with the Rainbow Cup final, the competition that was staged to be an entry point for the South African teams into the new northern hemisphere competition they are now part of, the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
On the same day the Bulls suffered an unexpectedly big defeat to Benetton in the Rainbow Cup final in Treviso, their Currie Cup team was well beaten 48-24 by arch-rivals WP at Loftus. That would normally be a result that Province would dine out on for the rest of the year, only that there was a caveat - the Bulls team they beat was made up mainly of club players.
The Bulls showed off their depth by recovering from that defeat to comfortably win the league phase of the competition, with the main point of conjecture for most of the way being whether one of the smaller teams, Griquas or the Pumas, would keep WP out of the semifinal placings.
In the end WP made the play-offs by the skin of their teeth, with a good win over the Sharks securing them the dubious honour of traveling to Loftus to play the Bulls. It was a dubious honour because no one gave WP a chance, and so it proved on the night, with the Bulls winning comfortably.
The Sharks were less comfortable in beating Griquas in their semifinal, with there just being four points in it in the end, and were then thumped by the Bulls in the final. The Bulls’ 44-10 win was the biggest ever by any team in a Currie Cup final.
BOK SELECTIONS DID HELP BULLS
The Bulls’ win was rightly celebrated in Pretoria and was further confirmation of the good things that have been happening under the directorship of Jake White and under the professional management of their private owners. There were a few hoary moments for them during league play, but by the time they got to the play-offs they were peaking.
It does need to be pointed out though that one of the factors in the Bulls’ favour was the way they were largely ignored by the Springbok coaches when it came to selection. Johan Goosen was injured later in the year during the URC, but he was there for the entire Currie Cup campaign, and their skipper Marcel Coetzee was another player who many felt should have been in the Bok squad rather than playing in the Currie Cup.
In contrast to the Bulls, the Sharks had almost an entire team missing from action because of Bok call-ups. By the end of the year they had made a statement of how much that impacted on them with their comfortable win over the Bulls in their URC match in Durban.
When the teams were at full strength though in the Rainbow Cup it was still the Bulls who prevailed, with the Stormers finishing second and showing pleasing promise in their transition towards a more attacking game. They made further progress in the away leg that started their URC campaign before coming a horrible cropper against the Emirates Lions in their derby match in the first week of December.
-------------------- DOMESTIC AWARDS FOR 2021 -----------------------
Groundhog Day
The Bulls won both Currie Cup finals, they won the Vodacom Super Rugby competition that brought down the curtain on that era for South African rugby, and until the URC started in September, it was a familiar diet of derby matches that made both players and coaches, not to mention supporters, get that Groundhog Day feeling.
That of course is a reference to the 2005 movie starring Bill Murray where the main character wakes up every morning to the reality that the date on the calendar hasn’t moved.
Upset of the Year
There were several contenders in the Currie Cup. Griquas thrashed Western Province 46-25 in Kimberley, a result you don’t see every day, and they also thumped the Sharks in Durban.
But for sheer shock value the Rainbow Cup final played in Italy, with the Bulls being thumped 35-8, was hard to beat. It was a massive wakeup call for the South African rugby that was carried over into the franchise games played by the British and Irish Lions in the tour games building up to the first test.
Newcomer of the Year
WP No 8 Evan Roos had many critics calling for him to be selected straight into the Springbok side with his excellent performances off the back of the Province scrum. He finished with the joint most tries in the competition.
Mystery of the Year
Marcel Coetzee was considered a shoo-in for a Bok place before the international season began and yet he never got a look in. There were some cryptic messages sent out by national coach Jacques Nienaber in the early weeks and it was assumed Coetzee would get a call later in the season but, partly because Covid did rob him of some weeks of game time initially, that call never came to the Bulls loose-forward.
Currie Cup Player of the Year 2020
Duane Vermeulen, the Bulls captain, being hugely influential in his team’s victory in the 2020 Currie Cup and, before he was injured, in the Rainbow Cup. The Bulls were a different animal when Vermeulen was present. Arguably, they remain so, in a negative sense, in his absence.
Currie Cup Player of the Year 2021
He had a strong rival in his Bulls teammate Cornal Hendricks, but for sheer consistency, Bulls lock Ruan Nortje has to be the player of the year for the 2021 edition of the oldest provincial competition in world rugby.
Team of the Year
Although the Bulls won the Currie Cup, Griquas produced the most remarkable performance en route to a third-placed finish. Apart from two good home and away wins over Province, they also outplayed the Sharks in Durban and comprehensively beat their neighbours, the Cheetahs, in the central union derbies.
Disappointment of the Year
The Cheetahs were expected to be supremely motivated by their exclusion from the United Rugby Championship but instead just never shaped at any point and failed to make the play-offs.
Top points scorer
George Whitehead (Griquas) 165 points.
Top try scorers
Evan Roos (WP) 8
Simon Westraadt (Pumas) 8