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Volume 19, Number 1028 March 2019
“Rugby was chasing a foothold in the Asian market and now, six months before the first Rugby World Cup in Asia, we’ve got the announced termination of the only Super Rugby side on the continent.” - Jake White
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A Weekend of Upsets in Super Rugby
Super Rugby started with a bang this weekend as the Blues managed their first win against kiwi opposition since round one in 2016. The lead changed hands throughout and it was probably a late yellow card for the visitors that swung the balance, as it did three years ago. Final score 33-26.
The early game on Saturday saw the Hurricanes entertain the Stormers in Wellington. The visitors had a real shot but lost it in the last quarter: 34-28.
Next came the first real upset of the weekend: Waratahs beating the table topping Crusaders. It was a result nobody with any rugby knowledge would have predicted and it still has our editor scratching his head, even now, almost a week later.
Then the Lions kicked off against the Sunwolves at the Japanese franchise’s alternate venue in Singapore. It was a bit of a tussle initially but the visitors took control early in the second half and never relinquished it. Final score: 24-37.
Also on Saturday, in the second upset of the weekend, the high-flying Bulls were on the end of a thrashing by the Chiefs at Loftus. Even the normally vociferous Naas Botha was rendered virtually speechless by the final score: 20-56.
The final match on Saturday was also the third upset of the weekend when the top Australian franchise, the Rebels, were unable to put the Sharks away in Durban. It was a missed opportunity to take five points from their road trip.
And on Sunday morning, the Reds consolidated their previous week’s win in Tokyo by handing out a rugby lesson to their compatriots from Canberra. The visiting Brumbies responded to the first score by the Reds but couldn’t sustain the effort and went down 36-14 after 80 minutes.
KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Sunwolves Are Toast After Next YearReal Rugby Trumps Big Bucks - JakeGold Cup is into the Knock Out Stage
Making the Southern Kings Great AgainSix-team playoffs: Yes or No?Loftus Hiding a Timely Reality Check
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Sunwolves Are Toast After Next Year
Last week, rumours of the Sunwolves being axed from Super Rugby resurfaced in the Australian media along with allegations that the decision was pushed by SA Rugby because the Japanese had supported France to host the 2023 World Cup. While that certainly wouldn't have made any friends in South Africa, it turns out that the real reasons are financial.
Firstly, the Japan Rugby Football Union made it known to SANZAAR in March that it planned to withdraw its financial support for the Sunwolves because it no longer views the competition as vital to the development of Japanese rugby. Since the franchise itself lacks the necessary financial backing, that left the ball in SANZAAR’s half of the pitch.
The organisation that administers Super Rugby then approached the franchise requesting a non-negotiable participation fee of about 1 billion yen ($9 million) per year to stay in the competition. As an aside, rugby fan DJ Rossouw reminded us on Twitter that SA Rugby pays around R75million (€4.6 million) per season for the country’s two PRO14 teams.
Nevertheless, SANZAAR appears bound and determined to axe the Japanese team from the competition, something which the Sunwolve’s chief executive, Yuji Watase, says will damage efforts to grow the sport in Asia.
As a result, from 2021 Super Rugby will return to a 14 team round-robin format, scrapping the unpopular conference system.
Real Rugby Trumps Big Bucks - Jake
Our editor’s old school mate and former Springbok coach, Jake White, has penned a piece on AllOutRugbythis week that offers a dash of reality to the debate over the pending exit of the Sunwolves from Super Rugby.
He contends that while the inclusion on the Japanese side in the competition in 2016 seemed like a good idea at the time, it didn’t really work. “The main reason administrators took rugby down that road was because they thought there was money to be made. Rugby was chasing a foothold in the Asian market and now, six months before the first Rugby World Cup in Asia, we’ve got the announced termination of the only Super Rugby side on the continent.”
White insists that what the Sunwolves experiment has shown is that it doesn’t work like that. “The Japanese need to develop their own regional rugby market and produce more home-grown heroes before trying to step up to Super Rugby,” he contends.
And he does have a point. A glance down the team sheet for last weekend’s clash against the Lions shows far fewer home-grown Japanese players than might have been expected more than three years down the line.
If we ignore, for a moment, the naturalised Japanese citizens involved, only six Japanese nationals were in the starting 15 on Saturday with another five were on the bench, meaning that only half of the match-day 22 appear to have been Japanese by birth.
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Varsity Cup: A Draw and a Trio of Thumpings
The first match this past Monday featured the high-flying Tuks in Pretoria hosting a UCT Ikeys side that has struggled to put together 80 minutes of good rugby all season. But it was a real test for the home side when they found themselves 0-26 down at half-time.
The second was half interrupted by lightning and play resumed with some 32 minutes remaining with Tuks still not on the scoreboard. The home side then almost pulled a Lions-like comeback but had to settle for a 26-all draw, which provided the two points needed to be sure of a home semi-final.
The other televised game of the day was Shimlas at home to the unbeaten Maties. From the start, the visitors looked like rolling right over the home team but Shimlas had other ideas. Brilliant defence kept them in touch during the first half and took them to the break with the score 0-10.
But dogged defence early in the second half by the visitors kept the home team from scoring a potential 9-point try (the move began in their own half). From the clearing kick, a lapse in defence let Maties in for a third try, after which Shimlas were always chasing the game in vain, especially in the last twenty when Maties opened the floodgates. Final score: 14-59.
Elsewhere this week, NWU-Pukke visited Bellville and put CUT to the sword (7-55) to solidify the claim on a semifinal spot while Wits did a similar demolition job on UWC (74-40) in Braamfontein to stay in with just a sniff of the fourth semifinal spot. But sealing the deal will probably require a win in Pochefstroom next week and for Shimlas to stumble against UJ in Johannesburg.
Gold Cup is into the Knock Out Stage
Last Saturday saw the last round of the pool stages of the 2019 SSG Gold Cup club rugby competition. The results were as follows:
Pool A:Northam Platinum Rhinos 46-21 Stiles Progress George OneLogix United Bulk Villagers Worcester 20-59 Durbanville-Bellville
Pool B:Phakisa Holdings East Rand United 32-37 Multisure Gardens Sasol Digi Mag Secunda 17-27 College Rovers
Pool C:Recall Security Bloemfontein Police 0-64 ABE Midas Naka BullsWelkom 27-15 CT Hydraulics Sishen
Pool D:Hollywoodbets Swallows 53-21 Rototank Roodepoort KWV Springs 29-63 Newrak Rustenburg Impala
As a result, this weekend will see the first knock-out round of competition as the teams that finished first and second in their groups duke it out for a place in next weekend’s semifinals.
The first quarter-final kicks of at 12:20 on Saturday as a curtain raiser to the local Super Rugby derby between the Sharks and the Bulls at Kings Park. It features College Rovers and Durbanville-Bellville (Durbell).
The other three all kick off at 16:00 as follows:
Northam Platinum Rhinos vs Multisure Gardens at the Northam Recreation Club, in Setaria just south of Thabazimbi
Rustenburg Impala vs Welkom at the Impala Rugby Club in Rustenburg
ABE Midas Naka Bulls vs Hollywoodbets Swallows at the Hannes Fourie Sportgrounds in Wonderboom, Pretoria
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Making the Southern Kings Great Again
A couple of weeks ago, news emerged of an Eastern Cape consortium acquiring ownership of the Southern Kings. We weren’t quite sure what to make of it because the name of the acquiring company made us suspect a prank: The Greatest Rugby Company in the Whole Wide World (Pty) Ltd.
But it turns out it’s not a prank and the company, GRC for short, has acquired a 74% shareholding in SA Super Rugby (Pty) Ltd, the Southern Kings' holding company, from SA Rugby. The Eastern Province Rugby Union (EPRU) acquired the remaining of 26% of the shares.
The owners of GRC are Eastern Cape businesspeople Loyiso Dotwana, Gary Markson, Rory Stear, Kenny Govender and Vuyo Zitumane. Dotwana, head of the consortium, is on record as saying that GRC’s mission is to “make the Kings great again”.
In a recent podcast interview with Rugby365 managing editor, Jan de Koning, he elaborated on the plans insofar as talent retention is concerned. He also suggested the Kings would be focusing fully on PRO14 and would look for sponsors and a base of operations in the northern hemisphere for future seasons of the competition.
The plans have been met with enthusiasm by the EPRU, as was indicated by the comments of that organisations president, Andre Rademan. "It is essential that the continuum between school, club, provincial and franchise rugby remains open and this new arrangement assures that," he said.
As committed rugby fans we look forward to seeing more competitive local participation in PRO14 and would be delighted to see these plans succeed.
Six-team playoffs: Yes or No?
With the Sunwolves destined for the exit door in Super Rugby (see page 2), the competition is heading for some major changes come 2021. Along with the abolition of the conference system, SANZAAR has also opted to move away from conventional semis and a final to a system that gives the top six teams on the ladder an opportunity to win the cup.
The league phase of the competition in 2021 will lead into a three-week finals series between the top six teams, with the top two waiting at home for a semi-final against the winners of 3 v 6 and 4 v 5. There are pros and cons and AllOutRugby has a fascinating analysis of the merits and demerits of such a format.
Featuring Tank Lanning against the revision and Zelím Nel arguing in favour of the new structure, the “debate” raises some fascinating points.
Tank reckons the six team finals series goes against everything that was once good about Super Rugby. “After 15 weeks of competition...we now want close on half of them to be given another bite at the cherry in a new, three-week comp? A three-week comp that is so massively biased to the teams seeded one and two, it is almost farcical.”
Zelím argues that Super Rugby is not a balanced competition and that a wider playoff series throws South Africa a bone. “Coaching in South Africa is significantly tougher than it is in New Zealand or Australia and, after almost 25 years in a lopsided competition, I can live with a playoff series that favours the Republic.” Check out the full “debate” here.
Loftus Hiding a Timely Reality Check
When you’re riding high on top of your conference table, there’s nothing quite like a 50-point thrashing by an unfancied team that, before the match, was last in its own conference. Well, that’s what happened to the Bulls on Saturday and Jon Cardinelli has analysed the performance, if that’s what it deserves to be called.
“And so here we are, picking through the wreckage of another heavy defeat to a New Zealand side. Just when we thought that the Bulls had moved on from the dark days of 2017 and 2018, they have been handed a brutal reality check.
“Pote Human delivered a scathing assessment of his side’s performance. The Bulls coach spoke calmly when addressing the media on Saturday night, and yet words like ‘humiliation’ revealed the mood in the changing room in the wake of a 56-20 loss.”
Cardinelli continues: “The level of capitulation was unforgivable. The Bulls have fared poorly against New Zealand teams in recent seasons – especially away from home. At the very least, one would have expected this side, which has shown some signs of progress, to go down fighting at home. One would have expected the form team in South Africa to show some pride.
“As it was, the game had already begun to slip away from the Bulls in the first half. Instead of getting to their feet and hitting back, the Bulls curled up into a ball and waited for the beating to reach its conclusion.”
There’s more, much more but he also has a few choice words for the Stormers, who also fared badly on Saturday: “Less was expected of the Stormers this season due to their problems off the field. They weren’t expected to beat the Hurricanes in Wellington this past Saturday, and yet there were aspects of their performance that rankled.
“The Hurricanes opted to rest All Blacks of the quality of Dane Coles, TJ Perenara and Ngani Laumape for the Stormers fixture. The absence of Laumape alone was significant. The robust centre has been the standout at the gainline this season, and has scored five tries.”
As Cardinelli concludes: “The South African rugby collective is still fighting to regain the reputation it lost in the wake of the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Recent performances, even more so than the results, have done nothing to aid that cause.”
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For your weekend viewing pleasure
My Ultimate Rugby app is showing another relatively busy rugby weekend beginning on Friday with two Super Rugby matches in the morning and another four on Saturday (see schedule alongside). Also on Saturday are three fixtures in the European Champions Cup and two American MLR matches (both competitions also have Sunday fixtures and the MLR programme extends to Monday).
On top of that the local club rugby season is still in full swing with the Gold Cup featuring the quarter-finals on Saturday (see page four) and various universities and other institutions of higher learning contesting different competitions in Varsity Cup on Monday – check out the Varsity Sports app for those details.
We’ll focus on Super Rugby as usual. The conference-topping Lions have a bye this weekend while the Stormers are still on their road trip down under, visiting Auckland to play the Blues on Saturday morning. Later in the day, the Bulls will be in Durban expecting to bounce back from the terrible performance last week.
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The Rugby Team at Leopard Newsletters.
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