Rugby: Travel bogey no more for South Africans

The Lions are being coached by former All Black coach, John Mitchell. Photo / Greg Bowker

The perennial whine out of Africa during a decade of non-achievement in Super 12 rugby was that the South Africans were fatally handicapped by having to play four and (on alternate years, five) overseas matches, compared to the two-match hit-and-run sortees into the Republic by the Australasian teams.

It is a gripe that was sometimes used as an excuse by plainly poor teams but it gained substance for the better performing sides when the expanded Super 14 called on Kiwi and Aussie teams to extend their foreign excursions. The SA players swear blind that it is no co-incidence that the Bulls won three titles in the first five years of the Super 14, with two of their triumphs in all-South African finals (in 2007 they beat the Sharks and last year they beat the Stormers).

So with the competition having evolved once more and the travel issue redressed a little more, the South African sides are a touch more chipper. They now play 25 per cent of their matches overseas, or four out of 16, when it used to be four or five out of 13 (a third or more), so that should take care of the persecution complex that hamstrung some South African sides before they boarded for Sydney.

An example is the Cheetahs, a team from the extreme hinterland of South Africa that are very handy at home but have not won a match outside South Africa since beating the Highlanders 49-18 in Invercargill in 1997. The Cheetahs, however, have an exceptionally good record in the Currie Cup, having won the domestic tournament three times in the past six years, but take them out of the South African fishbowl and they go belly up. Quite simply, they have never warmed to Super Rugby and especially the touring, but this year the mood is different, mostly on account of the fact that domestic derby matches have doubled.

The Johannesburg-based Lions are another side that has an appalling record in New Zealand and Australia - and in South Africa for that matter (last year they surpassed all before them by managing to lose all 13 matches they played) - and like the Cheetahs they will draw confidence from playing more matches against teams they are comfortable with. They will want to get on a roll at home and head south with rare belief.

One wonders if it is a co-incidence that the only time the aforementioned teams achieved in Super Rugby was when they were amalgamated into the Cats and under Laurie Mains' humourless stewardship they made the semifinals in 2001.

The Lions have once more reverted to a former All Black coach and like Mains, John Mitchell is getting reward from a mostly Afrikaans-speaking squad that responds well to discipline and structure. Last year, the laissez-faire approach of happy-go-lucky coach Dick Muir saw the Lions score plenty of tries but concede many more, and in the 2010 Currie Cup Mitchell righted the ship and set sail for calmer waters.

Another Kiwi, John Plumtree heads a Sharks team that is bristling with purpose (and talent to boot) after they were left in the starting blocks this time last year after a comical pre-season crippled three first-five eighths. They lost their first five games before recovering to win seven of the remaining eight to finish outside the playoffs when they had been widely tipped as potential winners.

The Sharks went on to win the Currie Cup and in the process pioneered (in a South African context, anyway) a ball-in-hand approach that perfectly suited the new focus of the law. The Sharks indeed look equipped to be serious contenders this year.

Down in Cape Town, last year's beaten Super 14 finalists have had a horror pre-season which has seen injury rip the heart out of their tight five. The Stormers, led by talismanic Schalk Burger, will be there or thereabouts come the play-offs, but the team they lost to in the 2010 final, the Bulls, are shaping up to be South Africa's best bet. They yesterday named a team for their opening match that had the same starting pack that played in last year's final and behind them they welcome back arguably the world's best halfback, Fourie du Preez, who underwent a shoulder operation after that final and has not played since.

Springbok captain John Smit made this rallying comment at the launch of the competition: "In 2007, our Super 14 teams won more games overseas than ever before, and we took that confidence of winning away from home into the World Cup in France. This year we need to the same. It is vital."