KEY POINTS:
South African rugby fans are preparing themselves for a sobering dose of reality after the intoxicating success of 2007 Super 14 and Rugby World Cup champions in the space of a few months. It really does not get any better and the only path from that pinnacle is down.
The winds of change have already seen the Springbok coach transform from White to black, in the form of Pieter de Villiers, a coach most senior South African players had never met until he did a tour of the Super 14 franchises to introduce himself.
The Springboks in the Bulls camp will have to get used to two new coaches this year. The Bulls coach in 2007, their much loved Heyneke Meyer, resigned from that position and applied for the Springbok job, surely expecting to get it given an impeccable record of four Currie Cup titles and a Super 14 championship.
But matters other than rugby were at hand when the South African Rugby Union made its appointment and De Villiers, who has never coached at Super 14 level and only briefly in the Currie Cup, got the nod and Meyer has subsequently washed his hands of rugby.
The Bulls, mysteriously, appointed Frans Ludeke in his place. Frans presided over the calamitous Cats when they took up permanent residence in the Super 12 cellar. What were the Bulls thinking? Especially when they have also lost their hugely inspirational captain Victor Matfield.
He reportedly signed a short-term contract with Toulon, possibly because he wanted to see who took over from White. Now that it is not Meyer, it will be interesting to see if Matfield extends his stay in France. The bottom line for now, though, is that he is not in the Bull Ring.
Nor are three other key figures in the championship-winning team - hooker Gary Botha (Europe), fullback Johan Roets (retired) and No 8 Pierre Spies (illness).
It has to be said that the champions are starting a touch on the back foot, which is not the case for the team they play on Saturday in Cape Town, the Stormers.
The Capetonians are showing signs that they are awakening from a Super rugby slumber that has driven their supporters beyond distraction. Patience with the Stormers' spectacular underachievement - given the talent and playing numbers in the Western Cape - ended abruptly last year when coach Kobus van der Merwe was fired. He has been replaced by last year's Cheetahs coach, the very capable Rassie Erasmus - the same Rassie who gave up the position of technical assistant on Jake White's World Cup staff to concentrate on the Stormers job, thus opening the door for Eddie Jones.
Erasmus was a brilliant Springbok flank under Nick Mallett and he is proving to be a highly innovative coach, winning the Currie Cup with the Cheetahs three years ago in the very next year after retiring as a player. He is shaking up the Stormers, beginning with removing the captaincy from controversial Luke Watson and the signing of former All Black first five-eighths Tony Brown.
While the Sharks, Bulls and Stormers have the potential to reach the semifinals, the former Cats' partners, the Lions and Cheetahs, are potential wooden spooners.
The Lions' two best players, Springboks Andre Pretorius and Jaque Fourie, are seriously injured (Fourie may play later in the competition, Pretorius not at all) and they have been undermined by the defection of highly rated prop Brian Mujati and Bok halfback Ricky Januarie to the Stormers while Boks in No 8 Jacques Cronje and wing Ashwin Willemse moved to Europe.
The unfortunate Cheetahs have been hit by a mass exodus. Bok legend Os du Randt retired after the World Cup, Bok prop Jannie du Plessis went to the Sharks and first choice players Ryno van der Merwe, Ollie le Roux, Willem de Waal, Michael Claassens, Marius Joubert, Ronnie Cooke, Philip Burger and Corniel van Zyl migrated to Europe.
Exacerbating this situation is the fact that the New Zealand and Australian teams are going to be significantly stronger.
Both countries rested after the World Cup, preferring to lick wounds rather than tour; and this year the Kiwis will not suicidally give their rivals a head start by withdrawing All Blacks from the first half of the competition.
