Why choosing a winner isn’t easy

The beauty of this Currie Cup final is illustrated in the exercise of trying to do the prediction thing properly by being as thorough as possible.

So you start off by watching the video recordings of the two semifinals. You watch the first one between the Sharks and the Blue Bulls and you end up being gob-smacked at how well the Sharks played for most of that game.

Okay, so there were only a few points in it in the end, but it is hard to recall when last a full-strength Bulls team was dominated like Victor Matfield’s men were for most of that Absa Stadium match. If you watched that first hour, before the rain came, then you would have been excused if you felt that the next semifinal didn’t need to be watched -- the Sharks will surely win!

After all, the Bulls are the reigning Super rugby champions. And to beat them in any fashion requires a good team on top of its form.

But then you decide that the Newlands semifinal deserves at least a cursory glance, and suddenly you start becoming confused. Which was the top performance of the semifinal weekend -- was it the Sharks, or was it Western Province?

For if you argue that it takes an excellent team to beat the Bulls, then you also have to agree that it takes an equally fine team to trample the Cheetahs like WP did that day. The only reason that it wasn’t a whitewash was because WP coach Allister Coetzee, with his team already 31-0 up, brought on his replacements, and a try was gifted to the Cheetahs through a wild pass.

The Cheetahs shut out in a playoff match, when last did that happen? I can’t recall it happening. The Cheetahs, after all, are playoff specialists in this competition, as can be noted from the number of occasions they have appeared in the final in the past decade.

With respect to the Cheetahs, they have often made the final, but they haven’t always gone into those finals with much chance of winning. If you go back through the time period dating back to the last ‘amateur’ final at Springbok Park in Bloemfontein in 1994, when Free State conceded more than 50 points to Transvaal (Lions), there have been many one-sided finals that they have been involved in.

While noting the successive triumphs between 2005 and 2007 -- when they shared it once and won it twice -- the achievement for the Cheetahs has often been to make the final, rather than to try and win it.

And that is where Saturday is different. It is being contested by the two teams that topped the log almost from the first week of competition, with WP leading the way until the halfway point and then the Sharks dominating the second half.

At least that is the way it was perceived -- but perception is not always fact. While the Sharks did end four points clear of WP on the final log table, they actually lost as many games in the second half as Province did. WP lost to the Cheetahs, Lions and Bulls, while the Sharks also lost to the Lions and Bulls before being outplayed by WP in the last match of the league stage.

As comprehensive as WP were that day, so the Sharks were emphatic winners in the first round game in Durban. In both instances the teams had excuses. Three weeks ago the Sharks could rightly claim that they were hamstrung by the knowledge that they had already secured top spot on the log, in the Durban game earlier in the season WP were severely depleted by Springbok calls.

The Sharks won well against the Stormers in the second last match of the Super 14 league season, but you got the sense that day that the high-riding Stormers, who had beaten the Crusaders 42-14 a week earlier, were caught off guard and were thinking ahead to the following week’s must win clash against the Bulls.

In some senses then, with WP now having their Boks back and the Sharks having something to play for, this match is the first time this season that these two teams have met with a level playing field.

That adds to the intrigue, but it doesn’t help us find a winner. Neither does looking at the past finals for some trend. Certainly the Sharks, because they are playing at home, should be favourites if you look at the synopsis from the past 15 years since rugby became professional. Indeed, it is why if I had to bet on this game, my money would be with the Sharks.

Of 15 finals played in that period, the home team has won nine of them, one has been shared, and the away team has won five times. So maybe WP will rue the defeat they suffered in the penultimate league match against the Bulls, for it denied them what would have been a telling advantage in the final.

There again, of the five home finals that have been lost, two of those defeats were suffered by the Sharks in Durban. Which is a good reason to keep your money in your pocket.