Sharks are victims of a flawed format
30 Jul 2012
MARK KEOHANE, in his weekly Business Day column, says Saturday’s Super Rugby final will be a farce instead of a real contest the tournament deserves.
Can the Sharks win in Hamilton and claim a first Super Rugby title?
Of course they can.
Are they good enough, individually and as a unit, to beat the home team?
Of course they are.
Will they win it?
Never.
The competition structure in Super Rugby finals has always been flawed because of the need to cram as much as possible into the year calendar, make the various administrations as much money as possible and give the broadcaster as much product as is possible.
A final should be about a contest and the definition of a contest is that the winner should not be predetermined.
Finals in which one team travels more than 19,300km and is given one training run before the season climax are finals only in name.
You play at home, you win. You play away, you lose. Occasionally a very good side wins away from home in another country in Super Rugby. In the history of the tournament, this was the exclusive right of a very talented and special Crusaders squad.
Officials argue that this is to reward consistency and the team placing top of the league gets all the play-off advantages. Cool, then why have a final? Win the league and you should be the champions.
The moment a play-off structure was introduced, which guaranteed each of the three Sanzar countries a play-off spot, it nullified any justification of rewarding league form.
Australia is the weakest conference. The Reds would have placed sixth on league strength. They won the Australian conference and got third on the overall league.
It is all a lie. From the outset, league form is not rewarded.
There should be three titles: a trophy and cash for the respective conference winner. It is a reward. It is an achievement. You, for example the Stormers, are the best South African team in the conference.
Then there’s the overall league winner and a very huge cash incentive and a big trophy. You are consistently the best team of the season, for example, the Stormers this year.
Now, your winners get a heads-up in the six-team play-offs, which is another tournament within a tournament. The heads-up is you get to host a play-off match which puts you in a position to play in the final, which is at a neutral venue and whose only purpose is revenue for the two respective teams and the competition organisers.
And there is a fortnight break between the play-off and the final. Then you have a tournament, in which there is merit, there is reward and there is logic.
Why have a climax to a tournament in which the format determines the winner? We play at home, we win. We play away, we lose. Why bother?
I have heard all the crazy arguments that if a team is that good they win anywhere. Crap.
The Crusaders’ campaign a year ago had a Hollywood script but a real ending, not that which sells to a dummy audience.
The same applies this coming Saturday. The Chiefs have to win because they are rested, at home and well prepared. The Sharks, in Brisbane a fortnight ago, in Cape Town last week and in Hamilton this weekend, have spent more time travelling than on the field.
Greed is the only motivator of the current system. There is no reward to any player, team or supporter.
Invariably the losing team in the final is lambasted by a disappointed supporter, and before there is time for proper analysis it all gets repeated in a league format at a national level.
Why no final here? The draw again influences the final standings.
The Sharks have confirmed their class in beating the Stormers. They were good enough. And they got the result. The Stormers, given the class of player, overachieved in winning the league and hosting a semi-final through consistently winning and they did not choke. A choke is when there is no way a team should lose. There was always a chance that they could lose because of the limitations within the available match 22 and the lack of try-scoring potency in the game plan.
The Chiefs, in New Zealand, were deserving winners and a Crusaders’ victory would merely have added to the illusion of the brilliance of a Crusaders team that relies on the extraordinary talents of Richie McCaw and Dan Carter and a historical dominance that has long not been a reflection of their rugby in the tournament.
The seven-times tournament champions have now lost five successive semi-finals and that is more relevant than the seven titles won by another generation.
We play at home, we win. You play at home, you win.
If it works for you, cool, but then add a bit of perspective to the illusion and see the tournament as a money spinner and not a representation of a team’s ability.
Both semi-finals were great value for New Zealand and SA respectively. Both national squads will be strong. Both will teams be extremely difficult to beat at home.
Don’t confuse national with regional and provincial. No bloke in Canterbury wants the Chiefs to beat the Sharks because the latter are South African. On the contrary. The same applies here. Unite behind the Sharks? Tell that to the Bulls and Lions supporters, as just two examples. Unite behind the Boks yes, but the Sharks are not a representation of Cape Town or Johannesburg.
National is national. Provincial is provincial. League is league. Knockout is knockout. Cash is all that motivates the administration. If it was about the contest, they wouldn’t force one team to spend 48 hours travelling across the world and then make them play 48 hours after touchdown.
The Sharks and Chiefs are bloody good sides. There is little between the two. It should be the dream final.
Instead it is a farce. It was when the Chiefs travelled to Pretoria a few years ago.
Can the Sharks win?
Of course they can.
Will they win?
They’ve won already if you are judging their rugby.
469 Comments
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30 Jul 2012, 17:13 pm
@Nils-299: will toddy resign?
30 Jul 2012, 17:18 pm
before i go, for all the dejected stormers fans out there…this is worth a read…
the 1st sentence of the last paragraph is really haunting…
Stubborn Stormers pay for lack of progress
4 Jul 2011
JON CARDINELLI says the Stormers will never win a trophy unless they address their attacking shortcomings and piss-poor excuse for a kicking game.
You almost had to feel sorry for the Stormers’ class of 2010. They were forced to play the Super 14 final in one of the most hostile of sporting cauldrons, and asked to beat one of the best provincial outfits in history.
The loss to the Bulls highlighted a few perennial problems, but in many ways the 2010 season was a relative success for a franchise that hadn’t qualified for the play-offs since 2004. The coaching staff said all the right things after that defeat, and given the quality of that Bok-laden Bulls side, the Cape side had good reason to hold their heads high.
That was until Western Province were hammered in the 2010 Currie Cup final. Eight months later, the Stormers were comprehensively beaten in the Super Rugby semi-final. There should be no talk of lessons learned, because it’s obvious the Stormers are not learning from the same old mistakes.
The layman as well as the more educated member of the rugby community has bemoaned the game plan of the Stormers. The strategy has centred around a dominant defensive system and a powerful pack of forwards, and even though they’ve struggled to score tries and record the necessary bonus points, the management has always used the motivation of winning as an excuse for a limited approach. When there has been criticism, they have pointed to the Stormers’ position on the Super Rugby log and claimed it was a sure sign that the Cape side were on the right track.
But there have been clear signs that the Stormers would battle to win in a play-off situation. They were beaten by the Reds in the league stage when the Queenslanders stood up to their pack and then played a smarter tactical game through halfbacks Quade Cooper and Will Genia. The Crusaders’ forwards fronted on 7 May and the Stormers had no response to a superior kicking display. They were overwhelmed by the Bulls in the penultimate league game and again it was the opposing halfbacks that won the battle of the boot.
In last Saturday’s semi-final, the Crusaders employed the same tactics. Their scrum dominated and their forwards also bossed the point of contact. Halfbacks Andy Ellis and Dan Carter then used that platform to kick for territory, and when they had the field position, they unleashed the dangerous Crusaders back division. As was the case in the Cape side’s two final appearances in 2010, the game was over before half-time because the Stormers had no means of response.
I wrote earlier in the season that the Stormers would do enough to win the South African conference, but that the shortcomings in their kicking game and their overly defensive approach wouldn’t allow them to win the Super Rugby trophy itself. I expected the Stormers to thrive off the energy at a sold-out Newlands and progress to the final, but expected the Reds to overpower and then outplay them in the decider just as they had done in the league stage.
I underestimated the effect the loss of Duane Vermeulen and Dewaldt Duvenage would have on the Stormers’ game. Vermeulen has been at the heart of their physical effort in 2011 and his absence compromised the balance of the back row and the pack as a whole. Without Duvenage, the Stormers were missing their chief tactical kicker.
I’m not sure why Peter Grant was touted as a potential Springbok flyhalf earlier in the season. His goal-kicking has improved, but statistics will confirm that he’s not as defensively sound as he was last year, and niggling injuries have prevented him from regaining his attacking edge. Most significantly, he’s failed to improve his kicking out of hand, which has long been considered the weak part of his game. His failure to improve has meant that the Stormers’ kicking game as a whole has failed to progress to the point where they can compete with the Reds, Bulls and Crusaders.
The Currie Cup is currently viewed as the springboard to the Super Rugby tournament, and you would expect the Stormers and WP to use this competition to address these shortcomings. The Cape side needs to add something to their game, or else they will continue to stumble at the business end of the tournament that matters most.
How they plan to develop their kicking game when their first-choice flyhalf will be playing rugby in Japan is anybody’s guess. The decision to allow Grant to play in a substandard competition like the Japanese Top League cost them momentum early in the 2011 campaign, as Grant arrived home late and short on rugby at the highest level. With Grant signed for another stint with the Kobelco Steelers and unavailable for the 2011 Currie Cup, the Stormers will be in a similar position come 2012.
The Stormers’ management needs to face up to the reality that their current game plan is limited, and while it should be good enough to earn them another play-off place in 2012, it won’t be good enough to win the competition.
One wonders how many botched play-offs it’s going to take for the Cape coaches to realise that their approach needs to change, because for all of their improvements the trophy cabinet remains as barren (the consolation prize of a conference trophy aside) as it was during the dark days of Kobus van der Merwe.
30 Jul 2012, 17:57 pm
@Transformation-293,294:
If no sane person can reasonably conclude that 285 or 287 is the same person of 290 then how can you?
Are you insane?
30 Jul 2012, 18:06 pm
@oogle-303: Transformation is mental. He has bipolar disorder coupled with delusional behavior. He also has a plethora of nics on this blog – and sometimes they actually converse with each other.
That is confirmed psychosis. I hear some bloggers here have been having lube saturated pajama parties at his house. I would be careful if I were them.
30 Jul 2012, 18:07 pm
@David-300: 48kg fagpuff…not 47.
30 Jul 2012, 19:11 pm
@Transformation-293:
i tip my hat to you sir…!!
with your persistence you have outted dusky-the-nic-stealer…!!
may all those who fling accusations around take note…
sheesh… how dof of dusky to forget he had changed his nic…
30 Jul 2012, 19:20 pm
Pity my team lost. Congrats Sharks!
Was very impressed with JPP.
30 Jul 2012, 19:21 pm
@ufo-306: Ja – how doff….
30 Jul 2012, 19:23 pm
@Dofsky-308:
30 Jul 2012, 19:25 pm
@ufo-306: I might be a nic stealer, I might even have multiple nics on this blog myself, but that is all a topic changing ploy to help Transvestation to skirt the fact that he has multiple nics on here, some female.
But hey – stick with him…..shows something about your mentality too.
30 Jul 2012, 19:26 pm
@ufo-309: Chokersky…….
30 Jul 2012, 19:26 pm
@ufo-309: Transie – is that you as well ? Is that 5 different nics now ?
30 Jul 2012, 19:29 pm
Dusky.
The climate is affecting you.
You gone mad.
30 Jul 2012, 19:30 pm
Stormers can oogle and google a caboodle this any which way they wanna.. FACT remains these dumb fck coaches are outright CLUELESS as to how to unlock defenses and HOW to get max results from a limited scenario.. they CAPITULATE through FEAR of busting out of their chickenshit conservative fear ridden cocoon of predetermined presupposed self preserving position.. and hence their outright FEAR of LOSING prevents them from ever WINNING when it actually comes down to the nuts and bolts of busting the fear ridden fear induced CHOKESHIT mold.
30 Jul 2012, 19:31 pm
@Dawn-313: You reckon ? Or it might be the Vodka…..transvestation does have a whole list of persona’s on here by the way. Did you know that ?
30 Jul 2012, 19:31 pm
@Dofsky-310:
what’s this ‘stick with him’ childish nonsense…? maybe david was right…!
i have no allegiance to you or even to TranSport… but by all evidence on keo he is a stand-up guy… even if he and i have butted heads on more than one occasion..
anyway good of you to finally admit it…!!
if you think Transformation is a multinicker… tell us which names he uses (some female
) and then prove it…
30 Jul 2012, 19:32 pm
@fitz1ella-314: Jissus….are you still crying ?….it’s over dude – move on with life.
30 Jul 2012, 19:34 pm
@ufo-316: I dont have to prove anything to you chokersky. Go about things exactly as you want, I could care less.
Transvestation is a stand up guy, until you realize how he manipulates things to suit his agendas and all the different personas he uses to do that. What his goal is – who knows….I am just saying…..
30 Jul 2012, 19:35 pm
@Dofsky-311:
@Dofsky-312:
i’m ufo and have been since 1996 on CNN worldsport rugby chat boards as they were called back then… i have no need of or use for multinics…
but don’t let reality get in the way of your delusions…
it’s fun to watch…
30 Jul 2012, 19:35 pm
@ufo-316: Are you also transvestation ?
30 Jul 2012, 19:36 pm
@ufo-319: hmmmmm…..you sound like transvestation to me. But ok – I will take your word for it that you aren’t.
30 Jul 2012, 19:38 pm
@ufo-319: What you doing this coming weekend ? You watching rugby ? Perhaps one of the Stormers could have you over to watch the final with them ?
30 Jul 2012, 19:38 pm
@Dusky-317: who’s crying fuckwit.. I’m putting the boot in to these pathetic hopeless useless fuckup Stormers coaching fraternity who do NOT know HOW to coach a decent S15 rugby team.. they learned their hopeless trade under the auspices of that other hopeless defense wins games protagonist who taught these lackeys how to LOSE when push comes to shove..
so you the nic stealer round here.. wouldn’t put it past a sharkshit to go underhand the world pretending to be all hunky dory goody two shoes kosher meanwhile he’s as slime ball black as they come.
30 Jul 2012, 19:39 pm
@Dofsky-318:
you are obviously the Mad-Eye character too…
he/you accuse TranSport of being Ryan and me of being the GrandWizzard Keo… you really do have an active imagination…
you couldn’t wait to leave south africa… and not only could you not stay away… but you have to come back to keo using multiple personalities… (some female
)
hilarious…!!
30 Jul 2012, 19:40 pm
@Dusky-322: Dusky, relax mate, UFO is one of the most unbiased and decent Stormer supporters on this blog boet,i know some of the Stormer okes tend to get under our skins, BUt UFO is good bloke, Skoppie you can give hell thats fine
30 Jul 2012, 19:42 pm
@fitz1ella-323: Dude, I dont act hunky dory goody two shoes….I am already a slime ball – why would I steal a nic to prove that ? Anyway – think about it – who’s nic did I steal ?
Transvestation got something he thinks is a lever now to try and direct attention away from the fact that he has a handful of different personas on here and on other internet blogs. He has actually been caught out before.
Me on the other hand – if you think I stole a nic – so be it.
I know you are hating on the Stormers at the moment. Rage is an early stage of the mourning process. It will pass.
30 Jul 2012, 19:43 pm
@Dusky-315:
As a self professed “IT Nerd”, please explain how you know that Transie has numerous nics. Have you traced the IP addresses, or are you just guessing?
30 Jul 2012, 19:43 pm
@ufo-324: What you talking about – I couldn’t stay away ? You are delusional fuckwad. My work takes me all over the world, including the corruption, scum infested South Africa – unfortunately.
30 Jul 2012, 19:44 pm
@Dofsky-322:
hahaha…
you’ll have to put way better lures in the water…
will watch the sharks play the chiefs in a chillaxed laid back manner…! then off to a super wine farm near paarl…
yes… life in cape town sucks big time…!!
anyway… off to dinner now…
thanks for the entertainment…!!
30 Jul 2012, 19:45 pm
@David-327: I am using the pRAM to boot up the qROM and from there I transfer the XID to the ssMID which gives me the SSNP. If you take the SSNP and compare it to the regionalised IPP – you get the IP.
30 Jul 2012, 19:45 pm
@ufo-329: If you’re a rugby supporter….it does kind of suck. Enjoy suiping your woes away.
30 Jul 2012, 19:46 pm
@Dusky-330: Eish, that sounds greek to me
30 Jul 2012, 19:47 pm
@sharks_lover-325:
sheesh.. thanks bud… much appreciated…
feel bad for teasing Dusky now…
Dusky… no hard feelings…!!
now must get going…
30 Jul 2012, 19:47 pm
@sharks_lover-332:
No – its just language only us skinny IT nerds can understand.
30 Jul 2012, 19:49 pm
@Dusky-334:
30 Jul 2012, 19:49 pm
@sharks_lover-325: To be honest I dont take any of this seriously. This is after all a blog – not so ?
I should probably not be such a chop though.
30 Jul 2012, 19:50 pm
@Dusky-330:
In other words, you’re a bullsh*t artist.
30 Jul 2012, 19:50 pm
@Dusky-336: lol its all cool bro
interesting though re Transie??
Wish i could see that lol
30 Jul 2012, 19:51 pm
Obsessed
30 Jul 2012, 19:52 pm
30 Jul 2012, 19:54 pm
@David-337: If that’s the way you want to label it – then yes. No problem
If I were you Stormers fans that are actually still here (after your team got a new ******* ripped for them by the Sharks) – I would band around Skop. He is having a hard time, and even though its been two days now he is still not over it.
Ignore me and give your fellow Stormers man some support.
30 Jul 2012, 19:54 pm
@Dusky-336: Comfort urself with this Dusky, it’s lekker to be a Shark right now
30 Jul 2012, 19:56 pm
@sharks_lover-342: Indeed. I have a facebook buddy that is ignoring me completely after the weekend. Flippin sore loser, because I have always congratulated his side when they have won. Typical.
30 Jul 2012, 20:00 pm
I’m an out and out Chiefs supporter come Saturday.. call me whatever you like.. I don’t bullshit the world I love the Sharks when back at the ranch I definitely don’t.!!
Two face kaleidoscopic supporters here in this country.. pretending its a national obligation to support a rival franchise just because they occupy some territory up the coast… mercenaries up shitcreek and whats worse is they actually think they the best razzmatazz saffa contingent of rugby resurgence on the planet… meanwhile they BUY all their rugby resurgence on the stock market
hope Sonny Bill and Co. smack these overrated guppieyuppies for six.. out the park.. home run back to bananarama country…
30 Jul 2012, 20:01 pm
@Dusky-343: lol yup
30 Jul 2012, 20:03 pm
@fitz1ella-344: Want more tissues?? like we give a flying rats @ss who you and a few other clowns support?? trust me we wouldnt want it any other way,
WE DO NOT NEED YOUR SUPPORT!!!
30 Jul 2012, 20:04 pm
@fitz1ella-344: Good for you !
As we are being honest, I actually support the Sharks and ANYONE playing against the Stormers. So – we are completely on the same page
30 Jul 2012, 20:05 pm
@sharks_lover-346: Its going to take years for Skop to sweeten up. Its such sour grapes in the Cape at the moment – its understandable they feel this way. I hated the Bulls for a season or two after the 2007 fiasco as well. I eventually got over it.
30 Jul 2012, 20:06 pm
@sharks_lover-346: You ain’t GOT my support and you NEVER will have it neither…
I’m a fully fledged Chiefs supporter come Saturday.. its their time to shine .. by Jove I reckon they’ve earned it.. don’t you think?
30 Jul 2012, 20:08 pm
@fitz1ella-349: Good luck. You will certainly be supporting the favorites two weekends in a row ! I would probably have supported the Chiefs in the final too if the Sharks hadn’t taught the Stormers a rugby lesson in front of their home crowd on Saturday.
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