Don’t count your chucks before the eggs have hatched
Two recent articles by Rob Houwing left me quite irked to say the least. In the first one he bragg about the strength of South African rugby with three sides reaching the play-offs of this year’s S15. He writes: “Whatever happens in the remaining three weekends of knockout fare in Super Rugby, South African rugby has affirmed its well-being by effectively having dominated the lion’s share of the 2012 competition.
…. this season is the first to be fairly obviously bossed by one nation … and that honour falls this country’s way as all of the overall log-winning Stormers plus Bulls and Sharks have made it through the six-team funnel.
…. at the end of it all South Africans were broadly entitled to a degree of smug satisfaction.”
In the second article he writes that history seems to indicate that the team that end on top of the log normally wins the competition. Sort of suggesting that the Stormers now fall in that category.
I must admit that I was and still are a bit irked with the arrogant trend of those two articles. Firtsly, the Stormers can consider themselves very lucky to top the log. The Chiefs suffererd two horrible last minute defeats in their last two games. In the Crusaders game Sonny Bill butchered a certain try by going on his own and against the Hurricanes the TMO allowed a try (after time) that no other TMO in S15 would probably allow. So in fairness the Chiefs should sit at the top of the log.
Secondly, I remember so clearly the 2010 season with the Bulls and Stormers playing in the final. The Bulls have humiliated the Chiefs in the semi’s at Loftus and SA rugby looked invincible.
In the run-up to the first tri-nation match of the 2010 season the Springbok players revealed in the media that they’ve been talking among themselves about being the best Springboks side ever. I can also remember the body language of the Springbok players as they warmed-up for that first tri-nations test against the All Blacks. There was chip on the shoulder attitude and a swagger in their walk as they went through their drills.
What happened in that test match is history. We got a rugby lesson. Bakkies Botha was yellow carded for head butting Cowan and we were comprehensively outplayed at the breakdowns. Peter de Villiers with just a hint of a catch in his voice said during the post-match interview: “It’s not a train smash. We will re-group and will be ready next Saturday for the second test.” In the end it was a train smash because we lost that test and the one after that against Aussie and then went on and lost against New Zealand in Soweto and against Australia on the Highveld (the first time since 1963).
Frans Ludeke probably said best what I want to say about Houwing’s bragging.
On asked how he felt about traveling to NZ to take on the Crusaders in the S15 playoffs Ludeke said:
“All that happened through the season is now irrelevant,”
I totally agree with that sentiment and it also applies to the oncoming test matches. Whatever happened so far this season counts for nothing when it comes to the 4 nations. Regarding the rest of the S15 tournament and the four nations consider the following remarks by Ludeke:
“It is about teams that can handle the pressure – it doesn’t matter if you play home or away.
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