Super Rugby dice loaded for Lions home quarterfinal
The great teams turn league form into play-off finals triumphs. The very good and good find comfort in league performances but endure heartache in the lack of silverware.
This is the story of the Stormers in Super Rugby.
The men from Cape Town statistically remain SA’s most successful franchise when it comes to league form (53.7% from 259 matches) but the transfer of an imposing league reputation has invariably lacked with just one Championship final appearance.
The Bulls are SA’s most celebrated Super Rugby Franchise with three titles and the Sharks are the nearly men of the competition, with three finals’ defeats.
The Lions are the form South African franchise, with 2016 being the apex in their competition history. They won more games than in any season, scored more tries and beat four of the New Zealand five franchises. But they fell short in a final played against the Hurricanes in New Zealand.
The Kiwis have dominated the competition with 14 title wins in 21 years and seventime Champions, the Crusaders, have won the most titles.
HOME COUNTRY ADVANTAGE IS OVERWHELMING, WITH NEW ZEALAND’S CRUSADERS THE ONLY TEAM TO WIN A FINAL IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
The Bulls are SA’s sole podium climbers and the Brumbies, Reds and Waratahs have combined for four Australian wins.
All five New Zealand franchises have won the title. It has translated into incomparable All Blacks dominance in the Rugby Championship (formerly the Tri Nations).
SA’s Super Rugby challenge has seldom been a collective onslaught. It historically has come in the singular, with one team carrying the hopes of the country and no South African team has won a play-off final outside SA yet.
The key to any South African success is the playing of the final in SA.
Home country advantage is overwhelming in the competition, with the Crusaders the only team to win a final in another country.
The travel makes the competition among the toughest in the world, but the quality of player is no longer accepted as the reason it is such a demanding competition.
The continued player exodus to Europe and the UK has depleted SA and New Zealand playing resources.
New Zealand’s production line has stood up the best to losing players of Super Rugby quality. SA’s has not and there are two squads of South African players in Europe who would strengthen the existing South African six franchises.
The reality is that professionally, SA should be fielding three regional teams in a reduced competition format.
This is not going to happen, so the South African challenge of six teams is invariably split between three potential play-off contenders and three packhorse teams who make up the numbers.
The Kings will be no better this season than at any stage of their brief 23-match competition history.
They will be brave and spirited, but they do not have the quality of player or the depth in player base to produce anything beyond the occasional home win cameo.
Currie Cup holders the Cheetahs are equally limited in squad depth.
It is one thing to win the Currie Cup, however, history shows the Bulls as the only South African team to double up on Currie Cup and Super Rugby success.
And they did it with a squad that has had no South African equal.
The expanded tournament structure and conference zones that ensure SA and Australia will host a quarterfinal play-off also gives false hope of actual playing strength.
This was illustrated in 2016, when the Stormers, as one example, cruised to the playoffs because their league structure meant not playing one Kiwi side.
League form again was very inconsistent with the play-offs and the Chiefs crushed the Stormers 60-21 at Newlands in Cape Town.
SA’s squad depth, across the six franchises, is at best decent and depleted because of the annual European exodus.
The competition structure again skews the respective campaigns and the Sharks and Lions will be the big beneficiaries from not playing any New Zealand teams in their respective conferences.
Stormers coach Robbie Fleck has been bullish in preseason talk of being better than the New Zealand teams and of targeting four wins against New Zealand opposition.
The Lions managed four such wins but lost the most important match of the year in the final against the Hurricanes.
Home ground advantage in the final was significant, as it always is.
The Lions, in 2017, have the schedule and inferior opposition, to accumulate enough league points to finish first. SA’s collective challenge will prove inferior, but if the Lions finish the league stages in first place, they are good enough to win the competition.
No other South African squad is good enough to be spoken of as possible Super Rugby champions.
● Keohane is a multi-award winning rugby journalist and former Springboks communications manager. Follow him on www.twitter.com/mark_keohane