Making it easier for the opposition

Travel has long been a complaint, and even an excuse, of South African teams participating in the Super 12, and it could have been again after the first weekend of matches against overseas teams.

Stormers captain Neil de Kock, to his credit, refused to use jetlag as an explanation for his team’s poor second half performance against the Highlanders in Invercargill. He pointed out that his team had played a Friday game before flying out of Cape Town, and their match against the Highlanders was only on a Saturday.

That may be true, but it was obvious in the second half at Rugby Park that the Stormers players were out on their feet. It was only because of coach Gert Smal’s clever use of the bench that the Stormers were able to get out of that game with the draw that earned them two valuable log points.

The Bulls also looked lethargic in the second half of their match against the Brumbies. You could argue that it was because the Brumbies had stretched them with their multi-phase movements and unpredictable angles of attack, but I don’t think it was a coincidence that both the Stormers and Bulls packs faded later in their games.

It is a fact that jetlag has much more of an impact for a team travelling to New Zealand or Australia than it does when the journey is in the opposite direction. This is because when you fly west to east you are flying into time, and not away from it.

But that still does not excuse South African teams for the way they erode the argument by too easily surrendering log points to opposition teams that come to South Africa.

For a South African team to win the Super 12, they need to make sure they came in the top two, which would secure a home semi-final. This means that winning at home is a non-negotiable – every single home game has to be won.

Well, we have had two games in South Africa this season, and already there are two defeats reflected on the record. More concerning is the fact that both of those results were far too easy for the visiting teams, and too many points were gifted to them during the game.

The Cats, after their Herculean effort against the Bulls the previous week, appeared to take the eye off the ball against the Hurricanes. Maybe they believed their own press. Or perhaps they had the same attitude as the commentators, who were so convinced from an early stage that all the Cats needed to do was be in touch going into the last quarter and the altitude would help them to an inevitable victory.

The problem was that too many tries were gifted to the Hurricanes through mistakes and poor defensive work, and by the time the game reached the last quarter the Cats just had too much catching up to do.

The Hurricanes are an unpredictable side. On their day they are brilliant, on their off-day they can be awful. In this sense, they have often reminded me of the Stormers.

But come on, Ellis Park, with the altitude and its hostile crowd, is supposed to be one of the most intimidating away venues in world rugby. It should take a very good team, and an outstanding performance, for a visiting team to win in Johannesburg. The Hurricanes were neither.

My money was always on the Waratahs winning in Durban. For all the criticism levelled at the Sharks, let’s be honest – this is a side woefully short on experience. Maybe that problem can be sorted out when John Smit and AJ Venter return, but they weren’t there for the Waratahs game.

What rankled though was the way the Sharks so easily surrendered those early scores with woeful defence. The commentators were right in suggesting in the first 20 minutes that the hosts lacked sparkle.

After the fighting talk of their coach following the previous week’s game, when he said victory at home was all or nothing, I fully expected the Sharks to come out looking as though they had fire-crackers strapped to their buttocks. It didn’t happen, and it took a Butch James penalty to lift them for a 20 minute passage of play that showed that this team is not completely without potential.

They made it easy though for the Waratahs by conceding penalties either side of halftime, and then suddenly it was time for the ball to go everywhere in the lineouts but to the intended target.

The point is that the Waratahs were always going to win, but the Sharks did make it easier for them than it needed to be. This is not normally the case when South African teams visit Down Under. In New Zealand and Australia the South Africans have to fight every inch of the way, there are very seldom any gifts.

Take the Stormers game for instance. The Highlanders were understrength after losing Carl Hoeft to the tsunami game and Anton Oliver to injury. They have lost a number of stars in the past few seasons, and in the first half they were under a lot of pressure. But they let the Stormers know this was an away game for them by refusing to buckle under the pressure.

It was a similar story in Canberra. Although the Bulls deserve credit for the way they played, and the game they employed, it should not be forgotten that this was a Brumbies team every bit as denuded of its strength as the Highlanders were. There was no George Gregan, no Sterling Mortlock, no Matt Giteau.

Indeed, so understrength were the Brumbies that Stephen Larkham and Clyde Rathbone were the only instantly recognisable backs. The rest were what Durban rugby writers would probably call no-name brands.

Yet for all their lack of experience, the Brumbies backs still on occasion threatened to run the Bulls ragged, and while the Bulls were left to lament missed opportunities, there was no ways you could emphatically state that the better team lost.

The message from the weekend was that the Brumbies remain a formidable obstacle in Canberra, regardless of who takes the field for them, and that you don’t go to the back-yard of the Highlanders expecting just to pitch up and pick up the log points for winning. It is time for Antipodean teams to get a similar message when they travel to Africa.