THERE'S no such thing as a soft game – certainly not in the Currie Cup. The fellows have to turn it on tonight against the Leopards (the old Western Transvaal for those of us who didn't study zoology) and come away with five points, nothing less.
It was heartbreaking how we blew it in the final moments against the Lions (Transvaal for those of us who studied geography) after playing such a rousing game. We really deserved at least two more tries. It was a great effort.
And a point is a point. We're still up there heading the log. We have to keep focus. The Potch/Rustenburg boys have played some great rugby this Currie Cup and they haven't come away with much to show for it. Tonight must not be their night. We need to go in against Province next week with all our ducks in a row.
What a sizzling Currie Cup season this has been so far. Great rugby from all sides including ourselves. Aerial ping-pong all but eliminated from the game, ball-in-hand gain line tactics and some great tackling. This is what rugby is all about.
And then, at another level, College Rovers winning the National Club Championship. Wonderful stuff, it shows what's coming up from below if we only care to look. Dare we hope for a reintegration of club and provincial rugby to something like what it once was? I know every provincial player has to belong to a club, but what chance does he ever get to play for it with provincial and sometimes national demands?
Somehow we have to make the reconnection because that's the way to draw in the schoolboy talent. Not everyone leaving school can expect to be taken into a provincial academy or the provincial squad, but quality club rugby could provide an alternate route, the way it did before.
And this is also the answer to the clamour for "transformation". It would be criminally irresponsible to put a player on the field in a Currie Cup match if he were not up to first division club standard. He could get hurt very badly, not to speak of humiliated.
And the only way you are going to get significant numbers of new players up to that standard is if club rugby is made attractive to a wider intake of schoolboys. It has to be top quality rugby, fun rugby and a path to greater things. That way you create a pool of talent and inevitably it comes to more closely mirror the demographics.
It is simply delusionary to believe the provincial unions can use any criterion other than physique/standard of play in selecting their squads. To do otherwise would be unkind and criminal.
I do wish Maria Ramos would join us at the Florida Road rugby colloquium to be properly briefed. And, speaking of briefs, strong knicker elastic is advised as the end of season approaches, excitement reaches a crescendo and streetlights are shot out in the traditional Florida Road feu de joie.
We have much information to impart. Crème de menthe all round! Frappe!
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