For some it’s not an ill wind

The protracted saga surrounding the Spears will result in one assured outcome in next year’s Super 14 – one South African side will be at a severe disadvantage.

The irony, given Port Elizabeth’s 'windy city' tag line, is that the adage about “an ill wind that blows no man any good” will be proven to be true as the Spears, or the Cats, will be unable to recover from their current state of suspension.

The fact is that, while the legal wrangling over whether it will be the Spears or the Cats in the Super 14, the other four South African teams, the Bulls, the Sharks, the Cheetahs and the Stormers, will be able to plan, prepare, proposition and contract without any qualms.

Judge Dennis Davis’s ruling in favour of the Spears in the Cape High Court is now two weeks old (at the time of writing) and the upshot, given SA Rugby’s intention to appeal, is that both the Spears and the Cats have been placed in cold storage, as it were, while the other four franchises are able to continue with business.

One obvious outcome will be that the Spears or the Cats, whichever of them ends up in the tournament, will have to compete with a team made up of the dregs of the players who have not been scooped up by the other four.

A sideshow of the Currie Cup is that the rugby directors or coaches of the four regions assured of participation are feverishly putting together their squads to be able to start preparing for the Super 14 within days of the culmination of the domestic competition on October 14.

The one thing the regions have learnt in the 11 years of Super Rugby is to get their squads signed up early and those who know they will be playing are probably all pretty close to having their final squads secured – but for one or two problematic positions or perhaps awaiting the availability of a potential game-breaker.

The players (and their agents) are very much in the market and you can be sure that none of them will be signing with the Spears or the Cats until they are given some assurance of participation.

Thus, while the stand-off between SA Rugby, the Spears and the Cats continues, the others will be operating in a buyers’ market with players willing to sign up for less in exchange for at least having a guaranteed place to play.

This 'horse-trading' is part and parcel of the professional era and apart from star players looking for greener pastures – say a Bryan Habana – others such as Derick Hougaard, Marius Joubert, Wikus van Heerden and Paul Delport might well be on the lookout for re-generation or a higher profile in a different region.

At present, anyone in this mood would almost certainly only be in contact with an organisation able to offer guarantees and the upshot will be that by the time the Spears or the Cats enter the market all the best players will have been scooped up.

It can be argued that the Cats/Lions already possess outstanding players such as André Pretorius and Jaque Fourie but you can be sure that they are either looking to jump ship or finding ways, seeing that 2007 is a World Cup year and given the national coach’s constant complaints about fatigue, to secure a less strenuous time of it with the Lions in the Vodacom Cup.

It may well be true, in the words of Tony McKeever, that “the future of the game of South African rugby was forever altered” by Judge Davis’s ruling, but unless the Super 14 situation is quickly resolved it might also be utterly ruinous; at first for one region but eventually for all.