Super Rugby Round 1 proved to be an interesting weekend of rugby for all of the South African Franchises, with the highlight of the weekend surely being the Cheetah’s win away at the Sharks.
Emirates Lions 8 Hurricanes 22
The Lions were full of enterprise and tried to copy their successful game plan from the Currie Cup over into Super Rugby. They dominated all statistics except for the crucial one, the scoreboard. The usually explosive Hurricanes back line simply snuffed out all of the Lions attacking intentions and fed off their mistakes. The Lions did themselves no favours with very poor performances by starting flyhalf Marnitz Boshoff as well as replacement Elton Jantjes. Numerous place kicks went side of the mark and their kicking out of hand was poor. I am not convinced that the pass that led to TJ Peranara’s try was legitimate and this whole “clear and obvious” and positioning of the hands makes common sense superfluous. He was ahead of the player passing the ball to him, so the pass simply had to be forward. There can be no complaints about the result though, the Hurricanes out smarted the Lions.
Cell C Sharks 29 Toyota Cheetahs 35
The Cheetahs made the trip down to Durban and mugged an unsuspecting Sharks team who were expecting a relatively easy win. This game was odd in that is was 20 minutes of attacking rugby in each half, separated by 40 minutes of arm wrestling either side of half time. In 2014, the Cheetahs were full value for the attacking abilities, but presented very little on defense. Their new outside to in defensive pattern may have been a little shaky at times, but was certainly a significant improvement over last year’s attempt. Joe Pietersen’s debut start as the Cheetahs flyhalf was an influential one and their attack appeared to be a lot more structured and mature and his deft kick passes brought their wings into play a lot more. For the Sharks, Pieter-Steph du Toit made a welcome return from his long term sternum injury and was influential, especially at line out time. The Cheetahs suffered a serious injury blow when Springbok lock Lood de Jager had to leave the field with a probable elbow fracture and the prognosis is at least four months out of the game, ruling him out of the rest of the Super Rugby season of this is correct. The Sharks have injury concerns of their own, with Springbok loosehead prop Tenda Mtawarira tearing a calf muscle, which would mean a number of weeks on the sidelines. It was pleasing to see that Sharks coach Gary Gold had the confidence to pull Springbok tighthead Jannie du Plessis out of the fray at the obligatory 60 minute mark. For the Springbok’s sake, we hope to see more of this and hopefully a few starts for ex-England tighthead Matt Stevens.
Vodacom Bulls 17 DHL Stormers 29
The Stormers managed to keep pace with the extraordinary hit rate of away teams winning in Round 1 of Super Rugby. The Stormers ran out to an early 12 point lead, but the Bulls clawed themselves back into the game with some tenacious and structured phase play. It would have come as a surprise to most how poor the Bulls scrum was and they could not build any true momentum playing in high speed reverse. The Bulls scrum did show an improvement late in the game, oddly when Springbok loosehead prop Trevor Nyakane moved over to the tighthead side to cover for injuries. The Bulls did show some attacking flair early on, which is a bit odd for them as they prefer a staid and predictable game plan, however the Stormers were much better at attacking the advantage line at pace with the quality ball they were getting from both their dominant scrum as well as their superior ability at the breakdown. I cannot see Frans Ludeke being the coach at the Bulls in 2016 and wonder if he won’t follow Stormers coach Alister Coetzee to Japan shortly.
As usual, the South African conference has provided us with plenty of water cooler chat and I look forward to much of the same next weekend.
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