How Kolisi
The fourth and last semifinal spot in the premiership division will go to one of these sides, who are tied on 29 points.
Harbour will be out to back up their playoffs effort from last year, having won promotion the season before, while the Lions are hunting their first premiership semi since 2013 – the season before they were demoted.
Wellington look to have the easier task, up against Taranaki in New Plymouth on Friday, with Harbour facing Auckland at Eden Park on Sunday. A bonus-point win for the Lions would be enough, because if the teams finish level on points the first tie breaker is the result of the contest between the two – which was a 35-23 win to Wellington on September 9.
At the other end of the spectrum, one of these teams will be relegated to the championship.
Taranaki have been in the top grade since the two-division split in 2011, and their fall from grace has been remarkable, losing six games on the bounce.
They are three points behind Counties, so need to beat Wellington
The Steelers are in Pukekohe the following night, but face a tough assignment against Canterbury, and, after ironically being the last team Taranaki beat, Counties have to do better than finish level on points with them.
South Africa could have, should have beaten the All Blacks three times in a row. But Steve Hansen is right. None of that will matter when the two sides meet in the opening match of next year’s World Cup. It won’t matter because South Africa won’t be able to pick anything like the same team.
The quota system demands South Africa must have eight non-white players in their World Cup starting XV. Of those at least five must be black African, with coloured players making up the difference.
Coach Rassie Erasmus will have to select on those lines when the Springboks play the All Blacks on September 21. There is no way he can do that, without significantly weakening the South African team, based on player form and performance this season.
Here is the dilemma. South Africa are currently resurgent because the team has a strong spine. No 8 Duane Vermeulen was hugely influential in the series win over England. Hooker Malcolm Marx, halfback Faf de Klerk, first-five Handre Pollard and fullback Willie le Roux were key drivers in the games against New Zealand.
Any coach of South Africa would want to pick those players for next year’s World Cup. So that leaves 10 spots available for eight black or coloured players. There are currently no black locks or tighthead props close to international standard. That means at least one of your spine has to go, even if you pick seven nonwhite players in all the remaining positions.
So you might as well tell Jesse Kriel, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Steven Kitshoff that they will be scarcely needed in Japan. Kriel was identified by Brendan Venter as South Africa’s best defender and the other two had huge games against New Zealand. No matter.
Four of South Africa’s spine were replaced by players of colour in the final 15 minutes of Sunday’s loss against the All Blacks. They lost direction at halfback, particularly defensively. Marx was not there to win the odd crucial turnover. And his replacement, Bongo Mbonambi, joined with du Toit in conceding a crucial penalty.
Earlier in the Rugby Championship, Erasmus picked a team with five or six black players. When the coach reduced the number to four against New Zealand he was mocked by some. They said Erasmus had regressed and South Africa would still lose by 20 points. Only then, South Africa went and won.
This creates a colossal dichotomy for South Africa’s leadership. Imagine what it would do for black rugby in the country if the Springboks won the World Cup under the leadership of Siya Kolisi. It would be a transformative moment akin to Nelson Mandela wearing the Springboks shirt in an attempt to found the Rainbow Nation.
Kolisi is a superb player and a dignified captain. He is also an extraordinary role model. His mother was 16 when he was born and his dad was in his final year at primary school. Kolisi grew up in the township of Zwide outside Port Elizabeth. At times young Siya went to bed starving. At times his family could not find the $6 needed to pay his primary school fees for a year.
Now Kolisi is leading his country, wearing the symbolic No 6 shirt of Mandela and Francois Pienaar.
He says: ‘‘I’m not only trying to inspire black kids but people from all races. When I’m on the field and I look into the crowd, I see people of all races and social classes.
‘‘I tell my team-mates that you should never play just to represent one group. You can’t play to be the best black player or to be the best white player to appeal to a community; you have to play to be the best for every South African. We represent something much bigger than we can imagine.’’
Kolisi touches on all the difficulties and contradictions of quotas and transformation. When South Africa came back from isolation in 1992 they played the All Blacks in their opening match. The team was all white. They were asked not to sing Die Stem, the anthem of the Afrikaans. They sang it anyway in front of 80,000 people at the old Ellis Park, despite the pleas of Mandela and the ANC.
Change has come slowly. When the progressive Nick Mallett was removed as coach in 2000, the Springboks