Retaining experience is key to successful rebuilding

As the Stormers bowed out of the Super 12 race in Auckland last week they should have drawn some consolation from the thought that this was always supposed to be a season of rebuilding.

Given the number of experienced players out injured, the Stormers were always going to battle. It is probably fair to say they were more competitive than even their most ardent fans would have predicted beforehand.

Just a little good fortune here and there could easily have seen them start with four successive victories. With a completely new halfback pairing and new front-row, getting to game five with just those two one point losses to the Waratahs and Highlanders on their record was not bad at all.

The Stormers would probably have won the many close games had it not been for inexperience. A couple of wise old heads might have got them through the frenetic last minutes against the Highlanders, Waratahs and the Reds, while it was inexperience that saw them wilt in the face of the Brumbies second half onslaught in Cape Town.

So in the normal course of events coach Gert Smal should be quite pleased and he should be looking forward to a better return with a more established team in 2003.

But while the Stormers have been one of the more stable Super 12 regions in the past few years, expecting the same players to be back a year later assumes a lot. And that is particularly so at this time when there is so much talk of an exodus of top players, many of them from the Cape.

Nothing has been said officially but already I have reliable information that Pieter Rossouw has signed for an overseas club. My informants tell me that all he needs to do now is find a way to wangle his way out of his WP contract.

Although WP have promised to hold players to their contracts, Rob Wagner also told me not that long ago that he would not attempt to keep players in the Cape against their will.

Robbie Kempson is also all but lost to the Cape, while there are plenty of rumours surrounding other players, including Percy Montgomery and even skipper Corne Krige.

What good would all this rebuilding be to Smal if next year he has to once again start with a new team.

Essentially this is the big challenge that South African rugby will face as the lure of the pound becomes more enticing for our top players in the coming two years.

While it is true that South Africa has lost only one player on a national contract, it is also undeniable that all four South African teams suffered in the current Super 12 season for the lack of experienced backbone.

Johan Ackermann and Japie Mulder might not have been in the Springbok plans, but they were extremely important to the Cats, even if only for the stabilising effect these experienced players would have had on the young players who were blooded in the side.

It was no coincidence that the Cats' best performance of the year (against the Crusaders) came this past weekend when Andre Vos was back at the helm and back at his world class best.

Maybe Vos is headed for overseas at the end of the Super 12, maybe he isn't. What is undeniable is that South African rugby cannot afford to lose him.

I was not always the greatest fan of Braam van Straaten's allround game, but there can also be no disputing that the Stormers could have done with his calmness and unflappability under pressure during those tense finishes that defined their season.

Make no mistake, South African rugby, even in the face of the overwhelming evidence of a 12,5% success record against Australian and New Zealand teams, does have plenty of talent. Johannes Conradie and Andre Pretorius are two names that spring immediately to mind, while Ngcobani Bobo would have been another had he not been injured.

But the best way to introduce youngsters is to introduce them around a core of experienced players. The young WP team that won the Currie Cup in 1997 had old hands like Dick Muir, James Small, Andrew Aitken, Louis Blom and Keith Andrews providing the stability around which the youngsters could grow.

It is also no coincidence that the most talented young fast bowlers available to South African cricket in the middle of the last decade (Pollock, Klusener) came out of Natal, where the late Malcolm Marshall just happened to weild huge influence.

The same thing happened in the Cape with the batsmen, where youngsters like Gibbs and Kallis grew under the tutelage of another great West Indian, Desmond Haynes.

I wrote after last year's Super 12 final that the Sharks, provided they could emulate the Brumbies by by keeping the core of their team together over a long period, were at the beginning of a new golden era.

That may still be the case, but the loss of Butch James and Trevor Halstead, two of the stars of their 2001 success, showed this year what can happen when the vital ingredients are missing.

Over the past few weeks, when the pressure has been on and the going has been tough, the Brumbies have missed the experienced players that they are now without due to a combination of injury and departure for overseas currencies.

The slippery running of the injured Sterling Mortlock was desperately missed against the Hurricanes, Waratahs and Highlanders. How desperate in those last minutes against the Waratahs and Highlanders was their need for a game-breaker in the league of Joe Roff, who is playing in France.

But the Brumbies are lucky. They have not lost nearly as many players since last year as the Cats or, if you take injuries and influence into account, even the Stormers.

Perhaps that is why after four defeats they are still challenging for a place in the semis and the South African teams are languishing at the bottom of the table.

On the face of it, and even taking into consideration his extraordinary try scoring record this season, Rossouw may not seem that important to the Stormers. But ask the young players in the team and they will tell you his influence and experience is more than just important - it is indispensible.