Another tale of two cities

They were the best of times, they were the worst of times... Okay, okay, let’s not plagiarise Charles Dickens, and I have a feeling that somewhere in the past nine years there might have been a column with a similar heading.

But the two cities referred to in that column would not have been Bloemfontein and Kimberley, two cities separated by around 170 kilometres of relatively straight and unremarkable road. The one, although it has a much smaller river, is a more fun place to visit than Brisbane, the other sells itself on its Big Hole when the real selling point should be the blue, blue sky.

There have been times when upon returning to Cape Town after a winter weekend in Kimberley where it has been easy to imagine the trip might have been to the moon or somewhere beyond that, such is the contrast in both climate and the feeling of vast space between the most populous part of the Western Cape and the capital of the Northern Cape.

While the geographical separation between these central South African centres may not be a big one, there is no denying their distinctly different feel. But this did not help an old sportswriter friend of mine who once, when journeying by plane from Joburg to Bloemfontein via Kimberley, alighted at the wrong airport. Those were the days when almost all the flights on the national carrier were in what I would call big planes, in other words 737s normally named after a South African river as opposed to the much bigger old classic 747s that were named after mountain ranges. These days you fly separately in much smaller planes, sometimes named after birds and they do feel like birds, to these cities.

But now I digress, for the real issue here is the rugby teams of the two cities, and what a remarkable story there is if you care to look. The two cities and their environs come together to form the Cheetahs during the Super 14 season, and this year they came last. They play separately in the Currie Cup as the Free State Cheetahs and Griquas, and they came fourth and fifth respectively.

While there was only one position and one log point separating them, they had markedly different experiences. Griquas started the season as if they had an old plane to catch and needed to get somewhere in a hurry, shocking the Free Staters in the first central union derby of the year in Bloemfontein.

The Free Staters struggled to recover from that, and went on to lose three more in succession, whereas the Griquas picked up momentum to get to round six before suffering defeat, and that a rather controversial and hotly disputed one at the hands of the Blue Bulls.

Everyone was talking about a Griquas fairytale, and for a long time it looked possible. It has to be said that Dawie Theron, the Griquas coach, did a remarkable job in keeping his team in the hunt to the last week of the league stage if you consider how hard he has to toil with minimal resources.

Free State have far more resources than Griquas, and if you look at the factory line that comes out of Grey College, you could even say that they boast the best raw material in the country. Unfortunately for them though much of that material gets exported across the Drakensberg to the well heeled Sharks, who sometimes give the impression they regard Bloemfontein as a feeder union.

Perhaps it is because of this that the Cheetahs always reserve their best performances for matches against the Sharks. These games take the form of a mini-trial with Cheetahs players trying to impress prospective new employers.

Their victory in Durban in the semifinal completed an epic fightback from the ignominy of the early rounds, and again expounded just how passionate and committed the Cheetahs are. Sadly for Griquas the fairytale season was not to be theirs, but their neighbours have a chance to make this their fairytale, one which if completed successfully will be remembered in rugby folklore for decades to come.

The Blue Bulls will start the final as favourites, but the Cheetahs have shown again and again just how foolish it is to write them off. I was visiting a hospitality suite at Newlands when the Durban semi was on television, and when Sharks fans started celebrating when their side went 18-6 up, I warned them it might be premature because “The Cheetahs are comeback kings”.

They had done it earlier in the season when they were even further behind against Western Province, they nearly did it in the Durban league game and also in the match at Loftus, where they recovered from a big deficit to only lose by three points.

While Griquas fell away after a promising start, the Cheetahs had to reach the semis by going onto a knockout footing from the fifth round. That they achieved their first objective and then knocked off the second is a remarkable achievement, and the Bulls should guard against the assumption that this spirited union and team of players are incapable of reaching the third objective.

After all, they have played in five of the last six finals, won two of those outright and shared another. That must say something about them.