Kings will find it hard in big league, but they can learn from their losses

Saturday Comment

HE pace, speed, skill and sheer quality shown by the Chiefs and Highlanders in yesterday’s great advert for Super Rugby in Dunedin should have provided some awkward and uncomfortable things for the Southern Kings players and management to think about.

It will be on Port Elizabeth that most eyes will be trained today as the Kings make their debut in the competition amidst widespread prophecies of doom. The bookmakers must share the dim view of the Kings’ chances of keeping head above water. Some of them have given the Western Force a 12 and a half point start.

That’s a lot if you consider that the visitors are not exactly among the top teams and they’re playing at a Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium that should be filled to the rafters with passionate Kings supporters.

The Force ended second last in 2012, so what is the spread going to be when the Kings travel to one of the top teams like the Chiefs or Highlanders? Certainly on the evidence of yesterday and some of the Kings’ warm-up games, which included a defeat to Griquas, the Kings are going to be up against it in their quest to adapt to the pace of Super Rugby.

Were the Kings entering the competition today assured of at least a three year stay there would be a purpose to it. The Kings director of rugby Alan Solomons and coach Matt Sexton could start working on a long-term plan like the one that the Rebels adopted when they started out. The Rebels were well off the pace two years ago, but they’re catching up rapidly.

It’s unlikely the Kings will get the opportunity to do the same, as a last placed finish among the South African teams, which is almost certain, will see them playing in a promotion-relegation game against the Lions.

Lose that and they’re back out of it again, and any talk of this season being a learning experience would just amount to words that are wasted.

Flying to Joburg from Cape Town over the vast uninhabited farmlands of the Free State and Northern Cape yesterday reminded me why I do see some sense in the Kings being included in Super Rugby.

The Eastern Cape is a massive area too, but it’s densely populated in comparison to the Free State. More than that, it also just happens to be the one part of the country where rugby has historically been a big sport among the black population.

From a transformation and rugby sell viewpoint, the sports administrators shouldn’t have required government meddling to see the value of having the Eastern Cape represented in Super Rugby. It’s a no-brainer.

TGranted, the Eastern Cape rugby administrators could have been more pro-active themselves in ensuring that they generated sufficient growth for today’s challenge to be less daunting than it is. But given the uncertainty over their future that has lasted for much of the past decade, it’s also understandable why businesses were reluctant to invest and why top players think twice about relocating.

What should have happened was that four years ago the South African Rugby Union should have started injecting money and expertise into the Kings. At the same time they should have informed the Cheetahs and the Lions that the inclusion of the Kings was a non-negotiable, that there wasn’t going to be room at the Super Rugby table for both franchises, and that they had four years to come up with a workable solution to their own predicament.

If that meant a return to the amalgamated Cats franchise, then so be it. Those who say that the Cats setup was unworkable have short memories.

The Cats were far more successful than either the Lions or the Cheetahs have ever been playing on their own in Super Rugby, and they even made the semi-finals twice.

I do see every side to the arguments on the Kings question, but the more I think about it the more convinced I am that, even if purely from a geographical viewpoint, the Kings do have to be included in Super Rugby.

And they should be given time to build rather than thrown to the wolves like they are being now.

Hopefully the Kings will give a better account of themselves today than many are expecting. The Force team is certainly not unbeatable, and if the Kings did emerge victorious it wouldn’t be the first time that a newcomer team has ridden the hype of the big occasion to do the unexpected.

However, it’s once the motivation that comes with the big occasion has worn off and the reality of what they face going forward starts to sink in that the Kings will struggle, and because there is no guarantee of a next year during which they can apply the lessons they learn in defeat, that struggle will probably be in vain.