In a somewhat quiet week only a few players gave their opinion on the final game of the 2009 Currie Cup. If I must decide who is the most outspoken lot my call would be the Cheetahs and their supporters.

What I also picked up is the freedom given by the Cheetah camp to their young players to air their views. Both young front rows had a lot to say. That can off course mean two things confidence or intimidation. Well if it was targeted towards Werner Kruger, he must have had enough of that this year from everyone. He must take it as part and parcel of the privileges of playing with so many other dominating members of the Bulls pack.  He might be the scapegoat in that pack, but the pack mostly come out victorious.

On Sunday the Weekend press started the big build up to a final where the Cheetahs are made the favourites by many commentators.

Snippets from the Sunday Press.

Simnikiwe Xabanisa says that one of the enduring mysteries of South African rugby is how a game plan patented as long ago as 2002 has proven so hard to outwit for so long.

The Blue Bulls play a simple game, which is loosely based on the forwards creating pressure by generating momentum, while their backs do pretty much the same with the kick and chase.

Once the opposition are ready to slit their wrists just to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere created by the plan, they invariably give away penalties, which are nailed with unerring accuracy by flyhalf Morné Steyn.

Simple, yet in seven years of playing against it, local teams still haven’t worked out a consistent way of cracking it.

Allister Coetzee, who was the architect of that admirable challenge, reckons there aren’t too many secrets to combating the finalists from Pretoria.

“The first important thing is to stand up to them physically, that’s no secret,” said Coetzee. “If you look at the athletes they’ve got, guys like Bakkies Botha, Gurthrö Steenkamp, Dewald Potgieter and Pierre Spies, they’ve got a phenomenal pack and you’ve got to be able to stop them.”

Another massive part to beating Frans Ludeke’s men, Coetzee said, was adequately handling their kicking game: “You have to respect it because they have the luxury of having both Steyn and Fourie du Preez. It’s also not just a kicking game, it’s an attacking kicking game.

Simnikiwe Xabanisa adds that the abiding memory of this rugby season has to be what one can only call the Heinrich manoeuvre.

We’ve all heard of the Heimlich manoeuvre, but wee Heinrich Brüssow has introduced all and sundry to a new move that has driven all kinds of opposition – from the All Blacks to your garden variety Currie Cup side – to distraction.

It features Brüssow tackling an opponent low, swivelling back onto his feet immediately and standing over the prone player, clamping his hands on the ball.

What happens next, is that the Cheetah and Springbok either forces a penalty for holding on, or emerges with the ball on his team’s side once the cavalry arrives to clean him out.

Sharks assistant coach Grant Bashford knows too well what untold damage Brüssow can do, the latter having been instrumental in upsetting the Sharks in last weekend’s semifinal.

Bashford calls it the “Brüssow factor”, which he reckons the Bulls will do well to heed as almost a separate threat to the rest of the Cheetahs’ challenge.

“If you don’t look after your own ball by getting people to the rucks, he will steal it or slow it down,” said Bashford.

“Let there be no doubt. It’s about the kickers, for sure,” said “The Boot” himself, Naas Botha.

“You have to remember, about 80% of all points scored in finals come via the boot,” he added sagely.

Botha should know. He played in 11 Currie Cup finals, a record he shares with the combatative Burger Geldenhuys.

Should the final follow the course Botha seems to favour, Morné Steyn for the Bulls and Jacques-Louis Potgieter, the Cheetahs’ flyhalf, will carry an inordinately heavy load.

The Afrikaans paper Rapport have two writers , the one decided to write up the Bulls, off course it is JJ Harmse. Louis de Villiers writes up the Cheetahs and comediant Leon Schuster, a big Cheetah supporter gives the Bulls supporter and singer, Steve Hofmeyr, some lip. Read the Afrikaans article that will follow for an Afrikaans view.