Two surprise outcomes this weekend? Home ground meant nothing this weekend. Front rows , Fetchers, Scrum halves and Fly halves who was hot and who was not.
Let me take have a look at the weekends games.
Home ground advantage
Shark Tank was not full, why? Supporters could have carried their team a bit further but the noise level was missing. What the reason was might be surprising, was it arrogance, over confidence or just a financial reason. Rain can’t be blamed – I have seen full stadiums in torrential downpours.
Newlands was chock and block full, the noise level was extreme and the home team got the support they deserved for a great season of Rugby. Victor and Kuun had trouble to hear their line out calls and surely the crowd played their rightful part. For WP the crowd was there.
Front Row talk
Before both semis the big talk was about the Front Rows.
The Sharks had a massive game against Griquas and they left the field with wounded front rowers. Bismark and Beast had to be replaced during that game and in the week prior to that match everyone knew that John Smit was a doubtful starter.
Cheetahs on the other hand had this enormous momentum going with their young front row under the tutelage of Os du Randt.
The outcome is clear, the highly rated strongpoint of the Sharks, their Springbok front row was humiliated by a young Cheetah Front row. To make things worse for the Bok trio, the Cheetahs somehow started the game without a backup Hooker, and was forced to play number 8 Ashley Johnson at hooker when Richardt Strauss was forced to leave the field with a swollen eye.
The Bulls tried their utmost to talk away their front row problems and probably spent most of their time in training last week to cure this problem. They started quite well and got the nod from the ref in the first scrum but as the game wore on they were exposed. As hard as it is for me to admit the WP won the front row battle.
Fetchers and Mates
Discussing fetchers is not my strongpoint. The battles predicted earlier in the week were between Heinrich Brussow and Jean Deysel. Anyone in doubt, who won that battle, must have slept trough the game.
The WP and Bulls talk was not so much about a match up between 2 players but more the unit. I would call that pretty even, Dewald Potgieter was brilliant and so was Luke Watson. Spies did hard work and stabilized the poor ball that popped out from the Bulls scrum well. To evaluate the two lose trio’s one must have more knowledge about that part of the game. Come in all experts comment on that.
Scrum halves
Before the weekend most people would agree that one can put them in this order. Fourie du Preez, Ruan Pienaar, JP Joubert and Dewaldt Duvenhage. The reserves were Heinie Adams(not used), Ricky Januarie(not used) , Tewis de Bruyn and Rory Kockott.
Not much has changed and although FdP did not play the hottest of his games his play was stable and very secure. His job was maybe the hardest because of a backtracking Bulls pack. Some commentators said that Duvenhages service was not accurate and that killed a few good moves.
Not one of the games was decided here.
Fly Halves
The two stars of this weekends semi finals both played at no 10, J-L Potgieter and Morne Steyn both won MOM awards for their brilliant work there. The other two Hernandes and Grant might do their careers some good to go and watch these two players performances.
J-L Potgieter missed 3 relatively easy kicks in the first 20 minutes of the game and that kept the Sharks in a false believe that this game was under control. The constant danger of J-L Potgieter with a few good breaks was missed by the home team. That intercept try by him finally swung the game towards the Cheetahs. His last minute drop goal will forever be remembered by Free State supporters. So nice to know he will wear the Blue jersey next year. Come final time, he will be enemy number one of the Blue Bulls.
Morne now what else can one say
I will keep it short and simple , Morne you Beauty. How cool can a player be?
Game Plans
Sharks went panicking in the last few minutes and every Tom Dick and Harry tried to be the hero instead of playing Hernandes into position for a drop. The rest of their game plan was perfectly countered by the Cheetahs who went all out for forward domination.
Bulls took the game by the scruff of the neck in that final 5 minutes, the experience was shown right there. Having been there before made that looking easy. It was far from it but the calmness of Morne just shows the belief the Bulls have in their game plan. Easy to talk now but the Bulls learned the hard lessons in the S14 . How many times have SA teams lost a super 14 game in the last move of a game, many times well after the hooter sounded. You don’t play 80 minutes you play till the end.
VRYSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT! Janne are in the finals.
Both games were excellent adverts for SA rugby. The worrying part, for me, is the poor standard of the front rows of both the Bulls and Sharks. The Boks were humiliated by a very young Freestate front row with a loose forward playing at hooker. The Bulls battled against an average WP front row.
The Bulls won this game because of experience I think.
However ecstatic I am for the win, I’m realy worried about the final.
Front row problems are a big problem.
If not adressed and solved in the following two weeks the Cheetahs will kill us in that department.
Turnovers was a headache aswell….
With Brussow lurking we’ll need to up our game a lot.
The Bulls can do it….question is will they…?
@Loosehead – 1
Your make me “bang”
Goodness what is Os doing there. You get so many forward coaches , but Os is quickly becoming a legend.
This year we are stuck with what we have , but Gurthro and Werner will have to go to Oom OS in the off season and learn quickly or their careers are over. We bought a few players and i hope that Bees Roux and mates fire up the Bulls pack of 2010.
@Blouste – There is a lot of repairs we must do to the BLOU MASJIEN. Hope we can get it started for the final but in this off season Mr Ludeke will have to work 24 hours per day to sort out the weak points we are showing.
He must be brave and start with a new front row, dropping GS is not that easy the requirements must be met , so where do we get the balance right. Hard work for Chilly and Fudge, we must get them up to international standard.
@superBul
So waar ou maat.
Hoop die manne kan dit uitstryk.
Manne soos Spies kom eers waarlik tot hul reg as die voories domineer.
Ek dink die close game was wel goed vir die Bulle voor die final…
Wat was die issue tussen Heineke en Die Bulls unie waarvan sommige ouens praat?
Sal great wees as hy die forwards ook hierdie 2 weke kan help…
@Blouste – Spies doen goed vir ons , as ons n swak of onervare 8ste man het met ons huidige skrum sal ons kaaaaaaak. Hy hou daai bal op n manier weg van die oponent en gaan vorentoe met hom.
HM het ons gedrop, ek weet nie of die lug skoon genoeg is om hom nou nader te trek nie. Ook sal dit Ludeke wat goed doen onseker laat voel. Ek weet hy is ook n pro maar moet net nie op so laat staduim die spangees versteur nie.
Gaan vra eerder vir Proudfoot om sy geheime dagboek aan ons te leen. Hy het darem daai Kaapse voorrye reg geruk in n baie kort tydtjie.
Ek vind dit baie snaaks dat al die “Headlines” in koerante en kommentaar op die web goed sê soos:
Cheetahs steel plek in finaal
Cheetahs shock Sharks
Sharks choke.
HOEKOM???
Die Cheetahs was die beter span op die dag. Hulle het amper die hele wedstryd oorheers en Sharks moes keer of die score was groter.
Hoekom is dit so groot skok dat die Cheetahs gewen het? Dit gaan seker net m*erse skok wees as die Cheetahs dalk oor 2 naweke wen.
Cheetahs verdien om in die finaal te wees en hulle het niks by niemand gesteel nie. Hulle het gespeel, goed gespeel en gewen.
Sien julle op Loftus vir ‘n monster game.
@Apoc184 – Ja man dis hoe mense praat, na jul begin die seisoen het julle baie goed teruggekom. Julle is nie diewe nie relax.
En ja julle was redelik in beheer as JLP beter geskop het was dit vroeer nag vir die Sharks.
Nou moet ons keer vir ons Wickets, Loftus gaan weer kook.
Ek kan nie wag vir 31 Okt nie. Pretoria se gees is altyd awesome op die dag van ‘n Finaal. Altyd lekker om in my oranje jas op Loftus te gaan sit. Baie kuk kommentaar maar baie meer “laughs” saam almal.
Mag die beste span wen. Gaan great wees.
Die antwoord is die regte belegging in die regte spelers. Die WP het die prys betaal vir te min diepte.
Cheetahs well done, big respect, you deserved to beat us on the day, Sharks you were a big disappointment, i dont think you played as if you were hungry enough.
Bulls, thankyou for winning, was a very exciteing game to watch, Stormers am not a fan but have to say i think your team played very well today. Am still a big fan of the SKULKANATOR, he has not lost it and am impressed with little Joe Peterson.
So glad i wont be seeing lulu lifting the trophy.
I love it the legend grows, read how the Morne kick gets more and more juicy by the day, first it was 46 meters , then 53 and read this on the IOL website.
“And Springbok star Steyn planted a 58-metre, acute angle penalty between the posts two minutes from full-time to give Bulls a 21-19 triumph over Western Province at Newlands in Cape Town”
SuperBul, my mater… dis nou ‘n lekker berig hierdie… ons soek nog meer sulkes!
Hello Treehugger, Did you have a good day yesterday. Apart from being let down by our team. It was very close but close is not good enough.
Cheetahs really played well against us and deserved the win.
@Puma – Greetings Puma, yes a good time was had by all and home by 8.30pm.
Dont leave the property much anymore am now considered a bit of a recluse and i like it that way. Lived it up far to much up until my mid thirtys.
Much respect to the Cheetahs, i wasnt even that upset when we lost, never looked like we were going to win unfortunetly.
Hope you had a good time with youyr friends and daughter, am out again just pop in every now again to have a qick read.
The Bulls were on to a certain loss until the braindead Fijian passenger made his glorious entrance. He should have been made Man Of the Match for saving the Bulls collective backsides.
The Sharks were undone by the one made self destruct machine, Ruan Pienaar. His adams apple was bobbing up and down so much he made me dizzy. I’m almost convinced he is a double agent for the Cheetahs.
The Sharks almost made it even with a depleted and broken pack and a few passengers in the backline. Tactics were shocking..almost amateurish and in some cases downright embarrassing to watch.
Two very fine semis and almost two upsets.
@Apoc184 –
Why indeed. I’ll tell you why. The Cheetahs have been perennnial underachievers since I can rememeber.
Yes they made the Currie Cup finals from time to time, but why I ask you with tears running off my kneecaps, can they not perform against teams outside of the Republic??
It’s not rocket science. You claim they are good but how can it be feasible that this talent cannot take on the franchises of Australia and New Zealand?
One hit wonders or genuine talent.
Show us you’re able to step up from amateurs to professionals.
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