Black days in Cape of Good Excuses

The Bulls fans at my running club wanted to know how I could get it so wrong. Apparently this was after they heard last week about how focused and motivated the Stormers were for Saturday’s big match at Loftus.

Well, my response to them is that if they had watched closely, they would know I did not get it wrong at all. The Stormers were focused. It was etched on their faces when they ran onto the field. And for the first three minutes, before Bryan Habana scored the first intercept try, their passion and commitment was carried through into their play.

Then, as they will tell you in the Cape of Good Excuses, luck just conspired against the men in black. I mean an intercept try, for goodness sake! How were the poor Stormers, who we were told earlier in the season had underperformed because of the Judas Cape media, ever going to recover from such a massive early setback.

And if they couldn’t hack a bit of criticism from “their” press, how were they ever going to handle that ferocious, snorting pack of forwards. For yes, I suppose we have to admit that too – even in those first three or four minutes, when the backs and loose-forwards retained some pretence of prettiness, there was a scrum in which the Bulls pretty much made the telling statement of the match.

Jake White, the Springbok coach, is much kinder to the Stormers than most media and fans are. He was not among those who booed and jeered the players after they lost to the Crusaders earlier this year. Instead he waited for the following week, when he knew they would come right.

They did, for the first 20 minutes. Jake told us it was the best 20 minutes he had seen from any Super 12 team anywhere this season. This probably made the players comfortable, and conspired against poor Gert Smal, for it could be seen by the players as an acknowledgement that they had indeed put in a bit of work in return for all that money flowing into their bank-account.

Jake could also feel justified after Saturday in picking more Stormers than Bulls in his Springbok team.

Those who don’t agree are obviously blind. They clearly didn’t see what I did on Saturday, and which Jake might just tell us during a press conference later in the week: That for the first three minutes at Loftus, the Stormers showed us all what they could do.

In fact, he might go a bit further, and say that it was the best three minutes of rugby produced by any Super 12 team anywhere this season. And how could Bulls supporters possibly argue against this contention? I bet none of you even remember those first three minutes.

No, in typical one-eyed Pretoria fashion, you are probably all waking up this morning with memories of Victor Matfield soaring into the sky for lineout ball, of Richard Bands and his mates trampling all over the poor helpless Stormers as they drove towards the line, of JP Nel (who is this Nel guy? They told me he was a back who played like a forward, but for a moment on Saturday he resembled Danie Gerber) weaving his way in and out of Stormers players like he was an over-sized and wrong-sexed ballerina.

Shame on you for not recognising the Stormers for the class team they are. Shame on all of you for being so one-eyed that you have forgotten those first three minutes, as well as the impressive way the Stormers ran onto the field.

And most of all, shame on you for not recognising the real reason the Stormers lost on Saturday. They were wearing white jerseys! For goodness sake, how can they possibly live with teams like the Bulls when they are known to everyone as the Men in Black, but actually run onto the field wearing white.

Next year, when your guys come to Newlands, we will make Vic Matfield and his mates wear pink. The Bulls will probably still win, but at least that way we good people of the Cape will ensure that your players don’t impress our ladies. At least that way we retain one last shred of dignity…