A lesson from the Crusaders

Researching the start of the Super 14 for Boots and All recently, which obviously meant going back to the Super 12!, I was surprised to come across a long-forgotten statistic which holds a lesson for South Africa's five teams.

There was the usual, depressing, stuff. No South African team ever won the Super 12. Only the Sharks, in 1996 and 2001 ever appeared in a final; no South African side ever topped the log in league play; the Bulls and the Cats (who started out as Northern Transvaal and Transvaal) finished bottom of the pile on three occasions and the Sharks twice; there are no South African individuals among the significant tournament record holders.

Delving into what was mostly a decade of disaster was the journalistic equivalent of root canal treatment but then I spotted a stat that has been all but forgotten given the subsequent history of the Super 12.

In 1996, the year the Super 10 metamorphosed into the Super 12, the Canterbury Crusaders unquestionably the team of the tournament, finished stone last in the pool stages.

The following year the men from Christchurch had moved up to sixth and in 1998 their second place finish laid the foundation for their first victory as they travelled to Auckland and beat the mighty Blues, who had hit the competition running, 20-13 in the Final.

In 1999 they retained their title - again winning away from home against the Otago Highlanders in Dunedin - and in 2000 they brought up the hat-trick; this time traveling to Canberra to beat the Brumbies.

The Crusaders would gallop on to win two more Finals, in 2002 against the Brumbies in Christchurch and in 2005, also at the Jade Stadium, against the Waratahs and appear in two other Finals - losing to the Blues in Auckland in 2003 and to the Brumbies in 2004.

In 2002 the stalwart South Islanders achieved the exceptional feat of winning all 13 their matches in claiming the trophy and, with two more wins in 2003, setting the tournament record of 15 successive victories.

At this is the time of the year, the "silly season" if you will, during which the franchises, to use John Robbie's least-favoured word to describe a team or squad, are preparing for the forthcoming season there are real lessons to be learnt from the 'Saders.

Obviously local teams, their coaches and the regional media, who are expected - no, of whom it is demanded - to act as proxy PROs have to talk a good game, be positive, upbeat and enthusiastic about the forthcoming season.

Anything else wouldn't do, and that I understand, but having been through it so many times before and then experienced the let-down of the actual competition most of us pliers of the written and spoken word tend to be just a little skeptical.

At some point during the tortuous journey into professionalism local rugby teams - from the Springboks down - seemed to lose sight of their true goal, to be successful on the field, and "marketing", "PR," "spin" and "slogans" became more important than the only true aim of a successful sports team or sportsman.

And that is to win.

There is nothing wrong with being modern and imaginative but in sport there is only one measure of success which, to deliberately rephrase the oft-quoted poem by Grantland Rice, should go something like this:

"For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks - not how you played the game -
But if you won or lost."
It may sound cynical but that is the way it is. If the Bulls, Cats, Cheetahs, Sharks and Stormers want to fill their stadiums, delight their fans and get the critics off their backs all they need to do is win their matches - for in sport that is the only form of "marketing" that really hits home.