SuperSport can’t afford to underestimate Highlands
DEAN Furman and his SuperSport United teammates will enter Orlando Stadium on Saturday with a hint of caution against Highlands Park who are in the MTN8 final in only their second season back in the top flight.
This is the Lions of the North’s first appearance in the final of the most financially rewarding domestic Cup competition in South Africa, while Matsatsantsa are playing in their third successive MTN8 final. SuperSport are something of Cup specialists, while Highlands have spent the better part of their time in the PSL trying to avoid relegation. That was until last season when they punched above their weight to finish in the top eight. On paper, SuperSport are favourites to win the MTN8 with a squad that is used to playing these types of matches and having gone through a tougher route to the final – beating Wits in the quarter-finals and their arch-rivals Mamelodi Sundowns in the two-legged semi-final. But games are not won on paper.
“They’ve got nothing to lose,” Furman warned his teammates.
“They will come into this match feeling like that this is a huge achievement to get to the final so let’s go a step further.
“We are thinking exactly the same thing. If we undermine them, we will be in trouble. If we take our foot off STEVE KOMPHELA is under no illusions as to the difficult task his Golden Arrows team face tonight in their PSL clash against Kaizer Chiefs.
The Abafana Bes’thende coach knows only too well how hard taking on a high-riding Amakhosi can be. But it is more the league leaders’ unpredictability, rather than their current form that has Komphela approaching the match against his former employers with some trepidation.
“We follow Chiefs and we’ve analysed them. Ernst (Middendorp) plays different formations. He has got a lot of variation,” Komphela said “He can IF you thought Schalk Brits was the oldest player at the World Cup you would be wrong.
By exactly one month, that distinction belongs to Japanese lock Luke Thompson, a New Zealander who was born on 16 April 1981, with Brits born on 16 May of the same year. Not far behind these two is one of Thompson’s adversaries in that epic match against Ireland on Saturday, 37-yearold Rory Best, who is six months younger than Brits, also a hooker.
Thompson, incidentally, heroically showed that “age ain’t nothing but a number” by putting in a staggering 19 tackles on the Irish.
The youngest player in Japan is exactly half the age of Thompson and Brits in Georgia hooker Vano Karkadze, who turned 19 in June.
Data visualisation company Zegami has reviewed player data from the gas, they are dangerous.
“They’ve got some very good players in their team and we have to be cautious of that. We have to play this game as if it’s against one of the big teams, it’s a Cup final and there’s a trophy at the end of the day. That’s what we are playing for. I don’t think that we will need more motivation knowing that there is a trophy to be lifted at the end of the match.” SuperSport lost to Cape Town City last year’s final. The defeat still
in every Rugby World Cup since 1987 to this year’s tournament to uncover the heaviest, tallest, youngest and highest scoring players to watch.
The company’s data confirms what we see on our TV screens when highlights of the inaugural 1987 World Cup are shown – today’s players are monsters in comparison to the skinny players of that era.
Back in the 80s, players had day jobs and gym was optional. Modern players live in the gym and are fed a cocktail of muscle-enhancing supplements.
The forwards at the 2019 World Cup are on average 13kg heavier than their 1987 counterparts. That is a massive difference. Incidentally the haunts the club as it denied them the opportunity to defend the trophy they won the previous season.
“It’s another final for us, which is great,” Furman said.
“We are really proud of our achievements over the last few years but it’s no use just getting into finals, you’ve got to win them. This is our seventh final in recent years. Of the six we have played, we have only won three. We want to improve on that win ratio. We are desperate to put our name back on that trophy and bring silverware back to the club.”
Last year’s defeat to City would have cut deeper for Kaitano Tembo who was on the verge of winning his first trophy as head coach of SuperSport. The Zimbabwean wasn’t dismayed by the defeat though, he knuckled down, worked even harder and now he is close to collecting his first trophy as a head coach.
“It would be massive for him,” Furman said. “Last year we were disappointed. We still have that memory fresh in our minds, how we lost on penalties, rightly so because Cape Town City were the better team on the night. This year we want to put that right, we want to give the coach his first trophy. We have worked long and hard with him. He has been with this team for a long time, I think that he deserves this as much as anyone.” heaviest player in Japan is Tongan prop Ben Tameifuna, who is a whopping 151kg.
Also, the modern backline players are in many cases heavier than the forwards at the first World Cup. The stats show that it is common place for backline players to weigh in around 105kg.
Fijian wing Nemani Nadolo is the heaviest ever back at a World Cup at 130kg when he took to the field in 2015. By contrast the heaviest wing at the 1987 tournament was Wales’ Adrian Hadley who at 98kg was way off Nadolo. Handley was also 22kg lighter than England wing Joe Cokanisiga who is competing at this year’s tournament.
Encouragingly for the Springbok lineout, three Bok locks feature in the top tallest players in Japan.
Lood de Jager, so impressive against Namibia on Saturday, towers above them all at 2.05m and just below him are three players on 2.03m: Eben Etzebeth, RG Snyman and Australia’s Rory Arnold. An inch below them are Adam Coleman (Australia) and Greg Petersen (USA).
But there is one record that still belongs to the old timers and will be in the sights of sharpshooters Handre Pollard & Co. The record number of points scored at a single tournament is 126, scored by Grant Fox at the 1987 World Cup in New Zealand.
Three players hold the highest number of tries scored at a single tournament, which stands at eight, scored by Jonah Lomu, Julian Savea and Bryan Habana.