There is a valid reason why the Currie Cup is divided into a Premier Division and a First Division, with the top sides this past weekend showing in no uncertain terms their differences in strength.
In the six compulsory fixtures – including the one between the Natal Sharks and the Valke a week ago – the Premier Division teams scored 273 points to 67 by the First Division sides, an average score of 47-11.
Simply judged by the scores in the Currie Cup’s compulsory friendlies, Eastern Province performed best.
However, their 24-11 loss to the Blue Bulls in Port Elizabeth on Saturday must be seen in context.
The Bulls had only two starting players of the Super 14 final in Saturday’s team in Gary Botha and Werner Kruger and this Bulls team will be strengthened by five or six players for the Currie Cup proper.
Eleven Bulls players, who played in the Super 14 final are now in Australasia with the Springboks and, with injuries to Fourie du Preez, Gerhard van den Heever and Jaco Pretorius and, with Flip van der Merwe and Deon Stegmann rested against EP, the mountain to climb for the coastal side before they are of Super rugby standard is huge.
Last year’s losing Currie Cup finalists Free State Cheetahs want to build their season on ball retention and more phase play.
They gave notice that they are on their way to achieving this in a clinical 45-7 win against Border in East London on Friday night where they stuck to their structures and ran in seven tries.
Four of Western Province’s five tries came from mauls and, while they will be pleased with the performance of their forwards, there was very little to be seen of the Province backline in their 29-5 win over the Griffons in Welkom.
Western Province’s Springbok fullback Conrad Jantjes completed his first match since breaking a leg in last year’s Super 14 and did enough to show he will again become a serious contender for a Test place.
Griquas gave unequivocal notice that they will be a factor again after a superb season last year when they overran SWD Eagles 50-12 in Mossel Bay.
Eight tries by a confident team with a smattering of new blood blending well with the veterans like Springboks Riaan Viljoen and Bjorn Basson and other stalwarts, Naas Olivier and Ryno Barnes, showed they are ready for the tough competition.
The Lions were at times impressive in scoring seven tries in their 45-29 win over the Boland Cavaliers in Wellington, with the score an impressive 45-10 only 12 minutes from the end when replacements by the Lions lead to a loss of structure and three Boland tries.
The win was sorely needed as a morale booster after the 13 losses from 13 in the Super 14 competition and although there is still much work to be done, they will be confident about their away match against the Leopards on Friday night.
A week ago, the Natal Sharks beat the Valke 80-3 to add to the last two season’s agony for the East Rand team.
It is one of my biggest concerns for the future of rugby in South Africa.
The gap between the top 5 teams in the country and the rest.
I read a quote last week where it was said that rugby’s biggest failure as a global sport is that the World Cup is only contested between 5 countries (out of a 100+ memebership pool).
I feel the same way about rugby in South Africa, and where it fails.
@ Morné:
Couldn’t agree more on both counts.
The IRB need to do more in terms of bringing the standard of the tier 2 countries up to tier 1 standards, just as SARU need to do the same with the Div 1 provinces here in SA.
The question is how?
Both the IRB and SARU don’t seem too worried. I’m not sure if it’s true but I recently heard that one of the Southern Kings Unions (SWD?) had been declared bancrupt.
If so how and why, and will it be used by SARU as another eason to stop the chances of the Kings ever getting a crack at the S14 whip?
After all, SARU protected the Lions before, why not again?
@ Scrumdown:
The main problem I have encountered personally is that the supposed ‘strengthning’ of the tier two teams can only be done at the expense of the current tier one teams.
It is the reason every single suggestion in this regard is being shot down without being objectively considered.
The problems pro rugby has brought to the game is its apparent entitlements it gives some and the ‘everyone for themselves’ mindset.
Sure it is a business and should be run as such and as a MASSIVE supporter of the pro-game you will not find me arguing this in any way, but what we forget is that it is also still a sport.
The game itself is reliant on its collective strength as a sport first, before it to be considered as a business. As a business alone rugby will fall way short of other sports in the industry (sports market competing with other sports worldwide) unless the foundation of the pro-game is built around the game in the first place and its general well-being.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article on how I believe the game of union is in deep trouble and the single most important reason for this is exactly what is mentioned above.
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