Just not good enough

As we go into a week where the debate over the fifth South African Super 14 franchise will be resumed once more, perhaps it is a good time to look back at what was achieved in the last year of the Super 12.

Of course, the season is not over yet. There will be two South African derbies over the next two weekends, and there is a strong possibility that the Bulls will boost their air mile accounts by flying to New Zealand for a semi-final the week after that.

But with the possible exception of a play-off to come, the past weekend did end the matches between South African and overseas teams. And we can now look back on the season as a whole and assess whether Springbok coach Jake White was right when he issued a press release last week in which he said there was no need to panic.

In fact, let’s start with White. It is his job to prepare the Springboks for international action. To him, the most important thing must be to prepare the test team. His main focus then is finding a team that can play in the Tri-Nations and which will be good enough to beat France in their incoming tour in June.

White must have a pretty good idea who his players are, so when he says we shouldn’t panic, maybe he knows something we don’t. Maybe he knows that the players who have not performed for their franchises in the Super 12 will suddenly start putting it together for him.

After all, it did happen last year, so there is no reason to believe it won’t happen again. It is also true to say that Super 12 form does not always bear much relation to what happens in the international season. When the Springboks won their first Tri-Nations under Nick Mallett in 1998 it was after a highly inauspicious Super 12 season from the South African teams.

And one team which did not perform particularly well, the Western Stormers (as they were then known), provided a sizeable number of Springboks who helped spearhead that Tri-Nations victory. This is important to note as it does appear from White’s public utterances that he is going to retain most of the Stormers Springboks who did well for him last year but who have bombed so spectacularly in the latest Super 12.

But the Super 12 is not just about getting a Springbok team together. It is also supposed to be about entertainment, about enthralling the public. This means the teams have to be competitive. Here we have to say that with the exception of the last four weeks for those who live in Pretoria and follow the Bulls, this has been another season where the Super 12 has failed to deliver to the South African public.

Since 2001, when South Africa had two teams in the semi-finals, the Super 12 has been mostly abject failure. The Stormers did get into the semis last year, but if you consider that South Africa provide a third of the teams in the competition, just one appearance in the semi-finals in the space of three years just isn’t good enough.

Neither is it good enough that we have just completed a season where there were 16 overseas matches played by the South African teams and out of those there was only one victory. The Bulls beat the Hurricanes and the Stormers drew with the Highlanders, otherwise it was a case of 14 defeats.

Funnily enough, the Stormers did lot a better overseas than they have done since they have been home. With the exception of the 25-10 defeat to the Waratahs, a day when they looked flat and distinctly jaded, the other three games on the road could easily have gone their way were it not for breaches of discipline, failure to finish and missed goalkicks.

With a little luck the Bulls could easily have beaten the Brumbies, but they were comprehensively outplayed by both the Highlanders and the Waratahs.

However, the fact the Stormers came close in three games and could easily have returned with an unprecedented three wins on the road should not be seen as a consolation. For while White has pointed out that the Stormers have lost experienced players, it would be incorrect to say the teams the Stormers lost against were any more experienced.

The Brumbies, with all the injuries and retirements that have cut a swathe through their squad, fielded far fewer international players on the day they played the Stormers in Canberra. And the Hurricanes and Highlanders between them don’t boast as many All Blacks as there are Tri-Nations winning Springboks in the Stormers team.

Not much needs to be said about the performances of the Sharks and the Cats on the road. The only team either of them came close to beating was the Reds, who against teams from their own country or New Zealand generally tend to look abysmal. The score in the game between the Cats and Crusaders gave off a false gloss: The Crusaders were understrength and gave the impression they were only playing when they had to.

The attempts to put a positive spin on a 77-34 defeat pretty much sums up the Sharks tour. This is a team that is normally the most successful South African side away from home.

Talking of home, the home leg has not been that good either. If you take away the Bulls, who have been on a roll in the past few weeks, you only have two wins against New Zealand or Australian opposition at what are supposed to be the intimidating (for foreign teams) venues of Ellis Park, ABSA Stadium and Newlands.

The Stormers scraped home against the Reds, and the Sharks shocked the Brumbies on Easter Saturday, otherwise it has been one defeat after the other. This sorry state of affairs, and the extent to which standards and expectations have dropped, was probably summed up best when it was suggested by some local media that the Stormers’ narrow defeat to the Chiefs was a “moral victory”.

The Chiefs had never won at Newlands before the game and are acknowledged as the weakest New Zealand team.

The ease with which even average teams were able to outplay them overseas means that not even the Bulls can really look back and say it has been a season of resounding success.

Overall it has been a sorry end to the Super 12 era for South Africa. And did I hear someone say roll on Super 14?