Jaguares favourites, yet another good weekend for SA

Let’s be honest and admit that most of us are now expecting the Jaguares to win the South African conference in Super Rugby and the smart money should be on them getting into a final against the Crusaders.

The only local team that doesn’t have to rely on help from others if they want to overhaul the Argentine side is the Cell C Sharks, but somehow their difficult finish to the competition, with away fixtures against both the Jaguares and DHL Stormers to bring down the curtain on their regular season, makes that unlikely.

The Jaguares have capitalised well on the get-out-of-jail-free card that was presented to them by the Vodacom Bulls at Loftus in mid-April and have been gathering impressive momentum since then. They were unlucky to lose their first match of the Australasian tour against the Highlanders, but that remains their only defeat since they followed up the narrow Loftus win with a pretty emphatic one in Durban a week later.

The Stormers came close in Buenos Aires a couple of weeks ago, and maybe there’s something in that - the Stormers, if they can keep injuries away, look their strongest challengers from within the conference at present. But the caveat is that the Stormers don’t have it in their hands. If the Jaguares win all their remaining fixtures they top the conference regardless of what the Stormers, or for that matter the Lions or Bulls, get up to.

NOT SCARED OF PLAYING AWAY

The Jaguares also have something the Stormers don’t have. They seem just as happy playing away from home as they do when playing in Buenos Aires. Travelling doesn’t frighten them, and neither should it if you consider the huge amount of travelling they do. We used to talk about the South African teams being at a disadvantage in the old days before Super Rugby was expanded because of the travelling, but that was nothing compared to what the Jaguares have to do.

Last year they won all four games in Australasia. Only the Reds stand in the way of their quest to make it 75 per cent on the current tour. They won two of their four games in South Africa. Not bad at all. But then they are an international team. That will compete in the World Cup.

WHAT MADE IT A POSITIVE WEEKEND FOR SA

And that brings us back to the point we were about to get to - South Africans may grudgingly accept a South American win in our conference, but then we also know this isn’t a year where Super Rugby is an end in itself. Not at all. This is a World Cup year, and in that regard you could say the weekend went swimmingly well, with individual players putting their hands up all over the place and underlining the depth that Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has available if he wants it.

Perhaps that doesn’t apply to the individual players at the Bulls in their loss to the Brumbies that leaves them with an uphill battle to maintain their challenge. For instance Erasmus wouldn’t have been happy to see Duane Vermeulen prone on the ground in the second half with what looked like a shoulder injury.

In the end he didn’t need a stretcher but it didn’t look good for the big man as he was helped from the field. And while on the injury front, there were also scares elsewhere, with Stormers skipper Siya Kolisi leaving the field before halftime against the Highlanders and Pieter-Steph du Toit finishing the game as a shell of his usual self as he struggled with an AC condition.

But Kolisi and Du Toit, invaluable as they are to the Bok cause and also close to indispensable, should both be okay, and like Vermeulen they are playing well. Kolisi in particular has made big strides forward in the last two weeks and like he was for the Crusaders the week before, the flanker was a massive presence before he went off.

DE ALLENDE STANDS TALL

No-one on the day though was more massive than Damian de Allende. The often-maligned centre was good against the Crusaders too, and in a few games before that, but the Highlanders game was his best by far. He is the one remaining Springbok that coach Robbie Fleck still has to rest, and he faces a difficult task deciding in which game he should do that.

The one thing the Stormers do have in their favour over three of their four competitors in the conference is that they have a possible ease-off opportunity coming up the week after this in the form of a visit from the Sunwolves. The Jaguares also still have to host the Sunwolves. Normally you’d say no team should be taken lightly, but after conceding more than 50 to the Rebels in a game on their home field, it does look like the Japan-based team have imploded.

Fleck is sitting with several concerns in terms of players nursing bumps and bruises, but perhaps those players who have been most battered in the tough clashes with the Crusaders and Highlanders can freshen up before the final league game against the Sharks by sitting out the Sunwolves game.

WIESE LOOKS THE BUSINESS

On form though Fleck won’t want to be resting anybody, and particularly not Cobus Wiese, with the lock pipping De Allende to the official man-of-the-match award with another busy, barnstorming performance that had international player written all over it.

South Africa has a plethora of locks available and it would be hard for Erasmus to find place for Wiese as a second row forward unless there are injuries. But if there are injuries then Wiese won’t let anyone down, and let’s not forget he’s played much of his rugby as a blindside flank. There was mention of Japan-based former Stormers forward Rynhardt Elstadt being in Erasmus’s sights as a utility forward, but unless Elstadt has grown an extra arm and leg since being overseas, Wiese looks a better bet.

AS DOES JANTJIES

Stormers scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies is also growing in stature with each passing week and at the weekend he excelled in a game that also featured arguably the world’s best halfback, Aaron Smith. The Bulls duo of Ivan van Zyl and Embrose Papier started the year as the probable back-up No 9s to Faf de Klerk at the World Cup. Now we shouldn’t be so sure. Regardless of whether he makes it right now or not, for let’s not forget this is his first full season of Super Rugby, Jantjies has emerged as a potential superstar going forward.

And superstar in the making is a good way to describe Damian Willemse. The 20-year-old’s assurance under the high ball, his strength with ball in hand, his stepping and his kicking game combine into a strong package that makes him the sure selection at fullback should anything happen to Willie le Roux.

WINGS GROWING ON TREES

Two relatively forgotten players in terms of Bok selection are Stormers wings Dillyn Leyds and Seabelo Senatla. The latter was playing behind Sergeal Petersen until Petersen got injured in Argentina, but has made full use of his opportunity subsequently. It looked like Senatla was drifting before, but in the last two games he has shown how much work he has put into key elements of wing play in 15s rugby, most notably his challenging for kicks.

Leyds scythed through the Highlanders defence almost every time he touched the ball at Newlands. He also tackled well and bravely when called upon to do so, and the Stormers profit a lot from his covering ability. He is a great example of the value of having a wing who has experience of playing fullback.

Wing is a position where the Boks have a lot to choose from suddenly. In the blockbusting Durban derby between the Sharks and the Lions, all four wings boasted Springbok experience and all four of them also showed us why. None more so than Aphiwe Dyantyi for his role in creating the second Lions try, but on an all-round level Makazole Mapimpi was again untouchable, and that in a game that also saw his wing partner Sbu Nkosi play well.

MAPIMPI ADVERTISES WHAT MAKES RASSIE GOOD

Mapimpi is an example of one of the strengths of Erasmus as a national coach. Unlike some of his predecessors, Erasmus is noted for his honesty and also for his clarity of thought when it comes to what he wants from each player. They’ve all been told what he needs, and Mapimpi had a lot of work-ons after his initial experience of international rugby last year.

Erasmus made the point before the Rugby Championship test against Argentina in Durban last August that Mapimpi was the player who had travelled the furthest in terms of improving his game, but he appears to have travelled even further since then. Erasmus doesn’t just pick players to try them out and then discard them if he detects weaknesses. If he feels the players can be improved by coaching that is what he does. And what all coaches should do, but don’t always.

Mapimpi’s franchise coach Robert du Preez may have raised eyebrows when he said earlier in the season that Mapimpi was the best wing in the country, but he won’t have many dissenters to that view now.

Inside the wings were two very good international quality centres, with Lionel Mapoe suggesting himself as an option should Jesse Kriel struggle to get back from injury, and Erasmus needs an extra outside centre. Lukhanyo Am was back to his best too and as with Nkosi and Mapimpi, we can wonder at what he might achieve were he playing for a team that was more orientated to placing emphasis on their attacking abilities.

Good though the Sharks were defensively and with their forward play in the first quarter, they still look a bit guileless on attack. Curwin Bosch has made a difference though since his X-factor was added at flyhalf. What remains confounding though is that he isn’t allowed to see out a full 80 minutes in that position.

Weekend results

Chiefs 19 Reds 13

Brumbies 22 Vodacom Bulls 10

Sunwolves 7 Rebels 52

Crusaders 19 Blues 11

Waratahs 15 Jaguares 23

DHL Stormers 34 Highlanders 22

Cell C Sharks 27 Emirates Lions 17