Winning the Super 12 requires depth in all positions

It is good to see that at last South African rugby appears to be getting organised when it comes to preparing for the Super 12.

The four coaches and the chief executives of the various regions met with Springbok coach Rudolf Straeuli and SA Rugby managing director Rian Oberholzer at headquarters on Wednesday and by all accounts it made a big difference to hold the meeting before the end of August rather than in November.

But judging from the mood I encountered during my stroll down the SA Rugby corridors immediately after the meeting, there is also a healthy degree of cynicism adrift at yet another pledge between the respective coaches to work together for the good of South African rugby.

Time will tell, and not the optimistic sound-bytes of Oberherholzer, whether the meeting was really fruitful or whether it will go down as just another opportunity for the various officials to get together to have their smiling faces photographed next to that of the new Bok coach.

The proof of the pudding in this instance arrives when the horse-trading starts after the Currie Cup and in the buildup to the next Super 12. Which players, considered surplus to requirements in their regions of residence, will be released to play where perhaps they will be more needed.

We have seen several instances down the years of national interests being placed second to regional or provincial interests. It started in the days when James Dalton, Naka Drotske and Chris Rossouw, the three top hookers in the country at the time, were all contracted to the Cats.

It continued into the new millennium when the new Bok coach, then coaching the Sharks, refused to release Lukas van Biljon, his second string hooker but then already in the Bok plans, to play for the Stormers, who had lost Charl Marais to an overseas club.

There were very good reasons why Van Biljon should go and play for another team. Although Straeuli was the best of the Super 12 coaches when it came to rotating players to give them maximum opportunity, it still appeared to make more sense to have Van Biljon in a region where he would be first choice.

The Stormers, of course, might also be accused of jealously holding onto talented players who could be worthwhile acquisitions for the likes of the Bulls, the Cats and maybe even the Sharks.

While most of those teams appeared to have a dearth of decent midfielders last Super 12 season, the Stormers had on their books no less than four Springbok centres - Marius Joubert, De Wet Barry, Wayne Julies and Robbie Fleck. Then they also had Gus Theron, not along ago regarded as a possible choice at Bok outside centre.

Since then young under-21 star Jean de Villiers has established himself as a future Bok midfielder - and there are several more promising young centres making their way up through the club ranks and just itching to get a chance to prove themselves.

On the face of it then, it would make little sense for Stormers coach Gert Smal to hold onto all of those players when some of them could be used effectively at the Bulls.

But while that has been my line for much of the past few years, and indeed has been the stance adopted by SA Rugby, who have been powerless to do anything about it, a study of the most recent Super 12 has prompted me into a slight adjustment of my stance (if politicians can do it, why can't I?).

If the Crusaders proved nothing else in their domination of the 2002 Super 12, it was that depth is the most important recipe for success in the competition. Ask their coach Robbie Deans and he will tell you that the reason his team came back so well from the previous year's disaster was because this season they had quality players backing up ever first choice player.

We saw it throughout the competition - when All Black fullback Leon MacDonald was injured halfway through, up stepped Ben Blair to do a job that even the first choice would have been proud of. It was the same in the midfield, while inside centre Aaron Mauger was ever present as a possible stand-in for match-winning flyhalf Andrew Mehrtens.

By contrast, the 2001 winners, the ACT Brumbies, found themselves up against it because they lacked depth. After four games they looked to be heading for another title, but then they had a couple of injuries to key players and they lost four matches in a row. They had to pull out all the stops to qualify for the semi-finals.

The Sharks are a similar case in point. The injuries to Trevor Halstead and Butch James were sorely felt. In particular, a huge void was left in the midfield by Halstead's absence. Young Rudi Keil was recruited from Boland, but the Sharks were intent in those early days on playing a Halstead style inside centre, and as a result Keil, talented player though he is, battled.

Considering they are currently playing an Argentinian at scrumhalf, the Sharks had better hope that Craig Davidson makes a complete recovery in time for next year's Super 12. There are other positions which might be problematic, due not to the Natal Rugby Union recruitment policy, which generally has been spot-on, but to a freak and debilitating wave of injuries.

It was for this reason - lack of reasonable back-up in key positions - that the Sharks went from being second on the log to near the bottom.

The Stormers, because they generally do have back-up, certainly at the back, were able to remain competitive despite losing seven first choice players to injury before the season even started.

But it was fortunate for Smal that he still had the services of someone like Werner Greeff, who ended up doing an admirable job as a stand-in flyhalf, when the Super 12 kicked off. Were he to observe to the letter the spirit of the "Put South Africa first" demand of the national hierachy, Greeff may well have been farmed off to the Cats last November to solve a potential midfield crisis.

This might have helped make the Cats or the Bulls more competitive, but it would undeniably also have weakened the Stormers.

The choice then might come down to this - is it the SA Rugby priority to make all four teams competitive in the Super 12, or do we want to produce a team that will actually win the competition?

The latter objective might not be helped if we called on the top coaches to make all their decent top fringe players available for the draft.

Maybe we should instead be calling for better management and selection of the talent available in each Super 12 region. It is a lot of phooey to say that there is no talent in the Cats and Bulls regions. Brent Russell played the recent Tri-Nations after not so much as getting a look-in at the Bulls; Lawrence Sephaka, that man mountain of a loosehead prop, never started a game for the Cats.

And what of Hendro Scholtz, who has established himself as a serious contender for Corne Krige's position as South Africa's foremost fetcher? With Tim Lane taking over at the Cats, that region should uncover enough talent to boast the sort of depth necessary to be competitive in the Super 12.