Gumede to Dyantyi to Van der Walt for the try: that is some serious firepower for the Bulls in the Currie Cup and a statement of just how the competition has reinvented itself with transparency and honesty and that the Currie Cup of 2024 is a feeder competition for bigger international challenges among South Africa’s provincial elite.
The Currie Cup of 2024 is not being sold as the latest instalment of what was once South African rugby’s only premier domestic provincial competition.
What was in 1994, in terms of the Currie Cup, is no longer in 2024.
The professional game has evolved in South Africa and the priority now is the United Rugby Championship for the likes of the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers. The Cheetahs also get more value out of playing in the international Challenge Cup.
It was all wrong in recent years, from the timing of the competition to the inflated sell of it as being the legacy competition of South African provincial rugby.
For so long the Currie Cup has seemed like an afterthought in the league stages because of the absence of big-name players and current Springboks. Occasionally, the big guns of Test rugby, if available, would be called on to play in a semifinal or a final.
It was all wrong in recent years, from the timing of the competition to the inflated sell of it as being the legacy competition of South African provincial rugby.
This year there was even doubt there would be a Currie Cup. There was initially no sponsor and there was a belief that any time frame would clash with the United Rugby Championship and the likes of the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.
There was also the matter of the Springboks playing 14 Test matches, starting in the last week of June and finishing in the last week of November.
Carling, as a competition sponsor, was convinced the Currie Cup remained a worthwhile investment, in terms of competition value and spectator audience, but only because there was an acceptance of why the Currie Cup in 2024 again has such value to South African rugby.
The value is that it is the bridge that unites the best of South Africa’s youth players with seasoned veterans, whose international days were spoken of in the past tense and experienced players who no longer were first choice squad members for the demands of the URC.
Admitting who was playing was more a positive than a negative because it focused on a competition that would introduce the South African rugby public to the very best under-19 and under-21 players, while reminding the rugby supporters of the capabilities of the grizzlies still good enough to battle with and against these youngsters.
The rugby has been appealing, the selection of so many youngsters has been refreshing and teams like the Bulls, Western Province (read Stormers reserve XV), Lions and Sharks are using the competition to give URC fringe players game time and to mentor the youngsters in a competitive environment.
The schedule, which saw the competition starting a month ago, also allowed for a month in which the Currie Cup was the primary rugby product on show in South Africa.
The Boks were in between the home series against Ireland and the start of the Rugby Championship next weekend and the under 21 World Championship, hosted in Cape Town, had been completed.
This allowed for teams to introduce some of the Junior Springboks and many of the provincial under-21 players because there was no doubling up on the schedule.
It makes for a great product because there is once again an identity around the essence of the Currie Cup.
It is a competition that will be the making of future Springboks and home to many past Springboks, but it will never again be the prized property that features the current Springboks en-masse.
For the past month the Currie Cup, for presence, has not been relegated to an appetiser for the bigger stage of Test rugby, in spectator appeal, and in this month, it has forged an identity, so different to its history, but so necessary to its future.
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