Dramatic day that determined SA rugby’s direction

Dick Muir says the mention of the game is the reawakening of an old nightmare while former Sharks stalwart AJ Venter, who was leading the team at the crucial juncture of the game, remembers it as his darkest day in rugby, but for many neutrals it was the most dramatic and memorable of all Super Rugby finals.

It was 19 May 2007, the occasion of the historic first ever Super 14 final on South African soil, with two teams from this country squaring up in a game that was going to decide which of the Sharks or the Bulls would be the first local winners of the competition.

It was also, agrees the then Sharks coach Muir, a day which may have changed the course of how the game was to unfold in this country, both at national and international level, over the next few years. They were the halcyon days for Super Rugby in this country, and Sharks assistant coach Grant Bashford was among several people involved in the game who arrived late because of the traffic blockages from the Durban North link with King’s Park.

The Sharks had been good all year and started well, dictating most of the game. Muir, like everyone else in the packed stadium other than the Bulls themselves, thought the Super 14 title had been clinched when Albert van den Berg slid over for a try two minutes from time to stretch their one point lead to six with a relatively uncomplicated conversion to come.

A successful kick would have made sure of it, but with so little time left, even that didn’t really seem to matter. Sadly for Muir, who would have become the first South African coach to win Super Rugby and thus might himself have been propelled into the frontline of candidates for the Springbok job to be vacated by Jake White at the end of the year, it was not be.

"We were presuming the conversion kick was a formality, so unfortunately we did what every gambling person knows they shouldn’t do - we touched the money. We celebrated like we’d won the competition, which of course we thought we had," recalls Muir.

"The guy who we expected to take the kick was Butch (James), but Frans Steyn ended up taking the kick. It didn’t matter to us for we knew Frans was a formidable kicker. We thought it was game over regardless of who kicked. But then as soon as it didn’t go over reality dawned. The Bulls could still steal it from us, if we let these guys in they would win the trophy.

"We got a big fright and we sent out the immediate message to hold onto possession until time was up. Then we kicked them the ball. Mistake No 1. And they returned it. Phew. I thought after they had kicked the ball back at us that they’d wasted their last chance because the game was over, the siren had sounded. Surely we’d kick it out.

"But we didn’t. We kicked it back at them again. It was panic stations but I still thought we’d be okay as they hadn’t really properly broken our defences all day. But a hole just appeared to open up for Bryan Habana. In the coaching box we were mortified. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. It was all so shocking.”

AJ VENTER’S SIDE OF THE STORY

Venter was effectively the onfield captain at the time for as vice-captain he had assumed the leadership reins when regular skipper John Smit was replaced 20 minutes from the end. It is one of the events in a first class career that ended up spanning nearly 15 years that has lived on in his thoughts. He has often mulled over that day and what transpired, and knows that some blamed him for the defeat on the basis that he should never have allowed the 19-year-old Steyn to take the conversion.

"Percy Montgomery was off the field at the time, but Butch was on the field, and he was better than Frans at short kicks," recalls Venter.

"I’ve never told my side of the story before, and I know John (Smit) said in his book that it was incumbent upon me to take the ball away from Francois and give the ball to Butch and to tell Frans that it wasn’t his kick to take. And maybe he was right that it was my responsibility. But Frans was a very eager boy, and that was what made him such a great player.

"I remember thinking in the moment ‘this is not supposed to be Frans’ kick’. But I also remember in that moment seeing how excited he was at having the opportunity to contribute to what would have been an historic victory. I literally then found myself thinking ‘I cannot take that ball away from this kid, this is his moment’. I thought I should just let it be and I walked away.

"I knew what I had to do. But when he just ran up and took the tee I remember thinking ‘it is what it is’."

Maybe the gods of rugby were just conspiring against Venter, as they had done 10 years before in his first Currie Cup final. Playing for the Free State Cheetahs against Western Province in the domestic decider at Newlands, Venter thought he’d won the Currie Cup at his first attempt only to be denied by a refereeing decision.

"We had a great team that season and things were going well. We were behind for most of the game against Province but Jan-Harm van Wyk scored in the corner to give us the lead. I was the first guy there to congratulate him. There were just two minutes left so I thought we had the Currie Cup won. Then the next thing a whistle blows. Bam! Referee Andre Watson ruled that the final pass from our captain Helgard Muller went forward.

"That was a bitter disappointment. But that 2007 Super 14 final was much worse for me," he added.

What made it seem so cruel for Venter was that while in 1997 WP had in fact topped the log, which was why they were hosting the final, in 2007 Venter felt that the Sharks were by some way the best team in the Super 14 and that there had been a sense in the build-up to the game and during the match itself that the title would be theirs.

"The Sharks had had a great season, everything was just flowing, and the final was at home because we’d topped the log," said Venter.

"Sometimes in rugby you just have flow, and in business it is also called flow. We felt we had it done and dusted. As players we knew we were going to win. I remember feeling in control of that game, everything was working smoothly for us. We had a lot of youngsters but we also had many older guys. There was a great mix of youthful energy and experience.

"We also had a great coaching team and everything was just gelling. It was the most painful rugby day I ever had in my life. For us it was supposed to be our day. That was when the Bulls started their run (of dominance in Super Rugby).”

NIGHTMARES

It was indeed, and Muir reckons if he had foreseen that he would have been even more shattered at the end result.

"At the time it wasn’t as disastrous as it was to become as I thought we had such a good squad then that the next year we’d have another chance to win it," says Muir.

"We did have a chance, we played in the semifinal, but it was in Sydney against the Waratahs and we slipped up. Every year since then it just seems to get further and further away (for the Sharks) and that result in 2007 set the tone for what in Super Rugby has been a pretty mediocre decade for the Sharks in the competition.

"Thinking back to that final does reawaken nightmares. It would have meant a hell of a lot had we won that game. We might have then gone on to dominate Super Rugby like the Bulls did. That we didn’t do that was the biggest disappointment for me because we had the personnel to do it. I really felt our squad was far superior to the Bulls, and I thought we were playing a better style."

Muir has had to live with the reality that had he won the Super 14 then, his own career might have turned out differently in that it would have been him, and not Heyneke Meyer, who would have been the first local coach to win Super Rugby. He may then have been the first port of call when SA Rugby were searching for a Springbok coach to succeed Peter de Villiers in 2012. It would also have been his more all-embracing ball in hand approach that would have been accepted as the way forward for the Boks.

BULLS' OUTLANDISH FEAT

That the Bulls were even in that final in 2007 though was because they were capable of some outlandish feats when they had momentum. They were fourth on the log going into the final weekend of the league phase and were destined to travel to either Durban or Christchurch for their semifinal.

But then two things happened - first the Crusaders lost unexpectedly to the Chiefs, the first defeat for them at home in 26 matches. And then the Bulls, faced with the task of winning by more than 72 points in their last game against the Reds if they were to end second and host the semifinal, battered Eddie Jones’ Reds into humiliating submission, winning 92-3.

Venter and Muir are both right though in recalling that it was the Sharks who had the better of the final, and even the most ardent Bulls fans would concede that the Durbanites should probably have been further than one point ahead when Van den Berg scored his try.

HABANA’S IMPACT

Legendary Bok wing Habana had more of an impact on the game than just his match winning try amidst almost surreal silence in the King’s Park early evening gloom in the 82nd minute. He also took Sharks fullback Montgomery’s legs out from under him when he was airborne in the second minute. Many thought he should have been red carded for that incident, and probably would have been had it happened today, but he wasn’t.

It was to have a sequel later in the game, for while Muir has often been blamed for his own demise as he took the experienced Montgomery off the field, the former Bok centre says it wasn’t a tactical substitution. Neither does he regret the substitutions he did make.

"I did take experienced players off, but in doing that we weren’t doing anything different from what we had done for the whole competition and we didn’t want to change what we had done all season. Percy was injured. He’d had his legs taken out by Habana, and was feeling very sore so we took him off the field.

"Most of the guys coming onto the field were experienced. The balance of our squad that year was in fact superb. We had Deon Carstens and Alberts on the bench. Bob played off the bench. If I recall, we also had Rory Kockott on the bench. The experienced guys who did leave the field were Percy and John (Smit). We always substituted John at that point in a game."

REFEREEING BLUNDERS

Muir hasn’t forgotten either the role that referee Steve Walsh played in the dramatic events of the day.

"Steve did apologise in a roundabout way later, but that doesn’t change the fact unfortunately," says Muir.

"In that unfolding of events at the end there was a knock-on, there were hands in a ruck and a forward pass all in front of the referee, but he did nothing. At the time we took the philosophical view that we could just learn from the experience, for we should have put the Bulls away a lot earlier. I thought we would learn, but sadly it hasn’t turned out that way."

The Bulls travel to Durban for this weekend’s game in a very different space from where Meyer’s team was 12 years ago but they have won two more Super Rugby titles since that epic day in May 2007. The Sharks have had mostly lean times since then. It could all have been so different had it not been for those hectic last minutes of the biggest Super Rugby match to be played on South African soil…