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The boot rules in Wellington

Friday 04th July 2008

No not that Wellington, that's later. The Kavaliers and the Griquas played out a bumbling 9-9 draw in the Currie Cup in Wellington on Friday, in as clear an advert for a re-think of the South Africa rugby structure as can be.

The Griquas, having kicked three penalties to secure the shared spoils, will be kicking themselves that they did not take all four points. They had the better of the match but had all the finesse of a prison warder serving porridge. Even then they could have won, but Conrad Barnard could only strike three from six pots at goal.

The tone was set for the game as early as the fourth minute, when Griquas wing Bjorn Basson failed to pick up a well-weighted grubber kick to score.

It was probably the best piece of kicking - or handling for that matter - on show all game, in a match where ball was kicked aimlessly for territory and/or to touch and the forwards and backs meandered over the heavy pitch like buffalo searching for better grazing..

Justin Peach gave the Kavaliers the lead with a penalty after 12 minutes, but Barnard, who had missed one, made it 3-3 three minutes later.

Barnard missed another after 20 minutes, but landed the final kick of the half to make it 6-6 - Peach had scored his second just two minutes before. Barnard then made it 9-6 ten minutes into the second half, but on a rare foray into Griquas territory, Stefan Basson stepped up to equalise with 17 minutes to go

In between all of that there was nothing to see - fortunate in some respects, as there was also barely anyone there to see it.

The Currie Cup is, outside of the big five unions, dying a slow and miserable death. There has been infinitely better rugby and crowds in provincial club matches this season and it wouldn't do SA rugby any harm at all to take a look at how the club game in the country could be nurtured, rather than have money senselessly wasted on staging meaningless games like this. It might mean the end of tradition if the Currie Cup was re-thought... but then that tradition ended years ago when Newscorp bought its share of rugby's soul. Why stop now?

The scorers:

For the Kavaliers:
Pens: Peach 2, Basson

For the Griquas:
Pens: Barnard 3

Boland: 15 Justin Peach, 14 John Daniels, 13 Piet van Zyl (captain), 12 Lionel Cornelius, 11 Alvin Hugo, 10 Elgar Watts, 9 Marnus Hugo, 8 Dries van Schalkwyk, 7 Frankie Horne, 6 Zolani Mofu, 5 Bradley Mockford, 4 Coenie Basson, 3 Andries Human, 2 Clemen Lewis, 1 Janro van Niekerk.
Replacements: 16 Pieter Wium, 17 WP Nel, 18 Cecil Kemp, 19 Whalied Heyns, 20 Dewaldt Duvenhage, 21 Deon Scholtz, 22 Stefan Basson.

Griquas: 15 Riaan Viljoen, 14 Gavin Passens, 13 Jaco Bekker, 12 Herkie Kruger (captain), 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Conrad Barnard, 9 Tobie Botes, 8 Heinrich Stride, 7 Stefan Gerber, 6 Frans Viljoen, 5 Jacques Lombaard, 4 Wayne van Heerden, 3 Ruaan du Preez, 2 James van der Walt, 1 Albertus Buckle.
Replacements: 16 Dean Hopp, 17 Stef Roberts, 18 Cilliers Coetzer, 19 Gareth Krause, 20 Sarel Pretorius, 21 Lafras Uys, 22 Egon Seconds.

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan
Touch judges: Jerome America, Linston Manuels
Television match official: Willie Roos
Assessor: Thuso Mngqibisa