Jake White will get it right and his Bulls will still be a factor in the United Rugby Championship.
The Stormers are on a bit of a roll, and for that every SA rugby supporter must be thankful as the domestic game needs tournament contenders to be transformed from the pretenders the Stormers looked like early on in the competition.
The Sharks have been hit and miss, but they hit hard at Loftus Versfeld for the victory against the Bulls, and they too will only get better.
The Lions currently look like the South African lost cause of the season and they play like a team with no one at the helm, in terms of player leadership and coaching. They were awful in taking a beating at home against the Stormers.
The Lions were ill-disciplined, lacked enthusiasm and accuracy in everything they did. They represented a lazy bunch of professionals, with a mindset that they have to play rugby as a profession, when they should recognise what a privilege it is to play the game for a living.
There were so many examples of clumsiness, which tells an observer that when there is a lack of conviction and a disregard for consequence, then you witness performances from players like that of the Lions against the Stormers.
The Lions, this past weekend, reminded me of the Lions flops that got kicked out of Super Rugby because they had won 15% of their matches over 20-odd years. It took a year out of Super Rugby for Johan Ackermann and Swys de Bruin to return to Super Rugby with a young Lions side whose players would peak with three successive Super Rugby finals and, in that time, not so long ago, become the dominant SA franchise.
It isn’t the situation right now and the coaching leadership isn’t getting results.
White’s biggest loss has been Nyakane, as props of his quality and versatility to play tighthead and loosehead are in short supply.
A quality coach makes a difference in rugby and the Lions don’t have a coaching set-up good enough to make the play-offs.
The remaining three SA franchises all have the capacity to make the URC play-offs and once there, it becomes a new tournament.
The Sharks are on the build and doing so with impact. Springbok lock Eben Etzebeth looks certain to join them from Toulon at the end of the season and the Sharks are an Etzebeth and a No.10 away from being one of the best teams in the tournament.
It will also need the Bulls and Stormers to somehow work wisely with the salary cap in getting a marquee player who proves to be a differentiator.
The Bulls, so dominant in White’s first two seasons, have been in a rebuild since winning a second successive Currie Cup in 2021.
White has lost so many experienced and strong leaders in Duane Vermeulen, Marco van Staden, Trevor Nyakane and Jason Jenkins. The quartet are all playing overseas. He also lost Ruan Combrinck, Travis Ismail and Gio Aplon to retirement and has been without several promising youngsters because of injury. He also lost the mercurial Johan Goosen to injury for the season.
White’s biggest loss has been Nyakane, as props of his quality and versatility to play tighthead and loosehead are in short supply.
White’s Bulls are shy of a world-class tighthead and a Lood de Jager-type lock.
If he manages to find something close to Nyakane and De Jager in the next few months, the Bulls have the capability to make the final of the URC. I do see them beating Italy’s Zebre away from home next and then getting on a three-match winning sequence at home.
The Stormers have found form and confidence. Long may it last.
The Sharks must find consistency and the Lions must do some serious soul-searching to find themselves, and once the players have done that, then the powers that be must find a coach who can win titles and not friends within the existing structure.
Mark Keohane is the founder of Keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.