Cheetahs win over the neutrals

For South African rugby fans, the current Super 15 log isn’t the most pleasant thing to look at. The Stormers do lie in “third” place but their inability to secure bonus points, with just one thus far, has seen the Blues move above them, meaning they are behind the Sharks’ eight ball. That’s because the Sharks are sixth and face the Hurricanes this week, followed by their trip to Newlands which will be a virtual eight pointer for both sides. The misfiring Bulls are eighth and now need to win every single game and hope for some favours from above them to make it into the play-offs, which is unlikely. The bottom of the table is a sorry tale for Springbok rugby this year, as the Lions are last and the Cheetahs just above them.

Still, if SA rugby fans were asked which side was playing the best rugby, it wouldn’t be ludicrous to suggest that the Cheetahs would fair extremely well in such a poll.

The raw facts don’t seem to say so, having played nine, lost eight, with only one win. They have also conceded the third most points in the competition after the Rebels and Lions, with last week’s heart breaking 47-50 loss to the Hurricanes really underlining their problems on defence.

However, if you dig a little deeper, there are some very good things coming out of Bloemfontein, the city of roses. The Cheetahs have secured the most bonus points (seven), have the competition’s current second highest and leading South African try-scorer in scrumhalf Sarel Pretorius (the best South African back in the competition) and they’ve scored the second most points in the South African conference. If the whole competition was taken into account, the Cheetahs lie in sixth place for points scored, above teams such as the Stormers, Chiefs, Hurricanes and Highlanders.

The high point of their campaign thus far has been their victory over the Waratahs in Sydney, their first victory in Australia. While the Australian press lambasted the Waratahs for their performance, they also lavished praise on the Cheetahs for their commitment and willingness to spread the ball, a marked departure from the Bulls, Stormers and Sharks’ style of play. The Lions do give it a fair go, but don’t yet have the same cohesiveness as the Cheetahs do on attack, something I’m sure John Mitchell is slowly rectifying.

Pretorius has been at the centre of most of the good stuff coming out the Cheetahs backline, with former Springbok coach Jake White saying he believes the Griquas scrumhalf is the form South African player in the competition. Sias and Robert Ebersohn have been inventive on attack, while the forwards — such as WP Nel, Coenie Oosthuizen, Ashley Johnson and Wilhelm Steenkamp — all showing the guts required to be competitive at this level. Of those eight losses, six have been by seven points or less. With Heinrich Brussouw and Juan Smith both missing from the vast majority of the competition, it really shows how the teams’ depth.

Débutante Riaan Smith grabbed two tries against the Hurricanes and he is an example of why this side continue to be competitive. A small wing in comparison to some of the monsters fielded across the competition, he showed the type of running instinct that Cheetahs backs always seem to possess, if not always tap into when appropriate. If they had more of an economic base to hold on to their best players — with the union serviced by the Grey College, among others — they would be competing with other South African sides on an equal footing.

They don’t have the best players man-for-man in this year’s Super 15, but as a team the Cheetahs are an example to the rest of the South African conference: a never-say-die attitude, as their losses to the Blues and Highlanders showed, and the guts to keep going when events appear, at first glance, to be going the other way. Cheetahs coach Naka Drotske and the rest of his staff need to rethink their defence, but in terms of every other aspect of the way the Bloemfontein side approach the game, he couldn’t have asked for more. The Cheetahs probably have the smallest support base out of the South African sides, but when it comes to the neutral vote, they are up their with the best of them.