CAN IT BE done? Fly from Durban to Brisbane for a rugby match after two bruising home games. Win. Fly back to Cape Town for a rugby match. Win. Then fly back across the Indian Ocean again to Hamilton, New Zealand, for a rugby match. Then win again?
What about exhaustion? Jet lag? Have the human body and psyche not reached their limits? Yet we have already achieved two of the three – and in fine style. Have the Sharks mutated into something different, the way scientists have discovered organisms that thrive in those lava belts across the seabed where water temperatures are thousands of degrees above boiling point.?
Just as creatures thrive in those extreme conditions deep below the ocean surface, so our rugby players seem to have developed to thrive in crunching contact with the Blue Bulls, Free State, Queensland, the Stormers and then Waikato Chiefs - interspersed with air travel both against and with the movement of the earth on its axis; with hotels and airport buses; with training sessions on strange grounds; and with the contant cajoling and urging of John Plumtree.
Tomorrow we find out. As we've discovered over recent weeks, the Sharks are world class, a top-notch outfit who can beat any other side on the day. They've melded psychologically into a unit. They think and act as one, they anticipate. They are a team. Their defence is awesome and brave, bodies laid on the line for extended phases. They are running onto the ball, taking it at pace, offloading. If they can summon up these attributes yet again – as they did, against all odds, in Brisbane and in Cape Town – the game is on.
What says Katinka, Ukrainian lead dancer at the Thunder Bar, whose suspender belt has predicted the course of Super rugby with such uncanny accuracy all season? Snap! Snap! "Lookee here! I got ze bets stowed avay. Beeg bets on Sharks! Ze bookies, zey giffink goot odds, ve maka ze money beeg time! Zey believa ze jet lag bulldang. But ze jet lag boggerall for Sharks. You votch! Sonny Boy Villiams – don't make me laff! Ve cut him down like last time! Keegan Daniel, ve luff you!" Snap! Snap!
Well, there speaks the lady who has been right all season. But there can be no minimising the challenge. We have things stacked against us and this time we have to perform as never before.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height …
Yes, Shakespeare knew a bit about rugby cup finals.
I myself will be breakfasting at the Street Shelter for the Over-40s, where the ladies' knickers will be commandeered on arrival in case they are needed for the fashioning of catapults for the feu de joie to shoot out the street lights in celebration.
Rugby is an unpredictable game, played with an awkwardly bouncing oval ball. Anything can happen – and it so often does. What a wonderful season it's been!
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