VIDEO: Who is coaching the Western Province Currie Cup team this week?
That seems to be the elephant in the room because coaches are changing on a weekly basis.
Western Province had an uphill battle navigating this season’s Currie Cup, despite playing opposition teams who also don’t have access to their Springboks and senior players.
So utilising youngsters in the Currie Cup is not an excuse.
All the top teams are going through the same thing.
Just how tough their campaign has been up to now is evident with a quick glance at the Currie Cup table.
The only two victories Western Province recorded since the start of the competition, were both against the Griffons, a team playing out of Welkom – beating them 64-15 the first time and 39-17 the second time around.
They endured two losses against the Cheetahs (17-37 & 19-26) and one against the Bulls (34-50).
This weekend they face the second-placed Lions in Johannesburg.
The reason these statistics are worrying is because traditionally Western Province has been the top Currie Cup team by some margin winning the trophy on 34 occasions and being runners-up 13 times.
The Currie Cup is the oldest domestic competition in the world and has been played for over 100 years.
@rugby365com asked Labeeb Levy, the skills coach and performance analyst at Western Province, if the union is merely using the Currie Cup to bring through talented young players or if they were still firmly invested in their campaign.
“You hit the nail on the head there,” Levy responded.
“Just by osmosis we’ve got youngsters coming through, it is going to help us along the way.
“A lot of them, when URC starts, will probably go to the Under-21 team, which is great for our union.
“If they can play in the junior ranks and knock over the Bulls, Lions, Sharks, etc., it is a big step for the future mentally when their players migrate and our players migrate say into Currie Cup and URC,” he explained.
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However, Levy also said his side was still within striking distance of the rest and able to improve their standing.
“We are still in a position on the log if we can do something special this weekend and hopefully next weekend as well then we are in the mix.
“So, we are not throwing the competition away, we know we are still in striking distance.
“A win will do wonders to the log but the youngsters are immense for the union and the franchise.”
The key issue at WP is clearly that no coach was appointed to head up the Currie Cup this season.
Looking at the other three big unions, the Bulls appointed Phiwe Nomlomo and they are currently in first place, the Lions appointed Mzwakhe Nkosi (second place) and the Sharks went with JP Pietersen (fifth place).
Levy was also asked who the acting head coach is at the moment.
“It is being spread around.
“Various people are on leave at various times so we are just totally spreading the workload as much as we can.
“No one has even been appointed as interim coach at this point,” Levy claimed.
He further tried to explain how their system operates, opting to juggle whichever coaches were available at a particular week.
“How we do [it] during the week is maybe Dawie [Snyman] will give more attention on the URC, I maybe do more in the Currie Cup but I am also helping on the junior teams, Rito is coming back the end of the week so he will be jumping in.
“To answer the question, there is no appointed interim coach because we are looking at the bigger picture.”
He was also asked if this was the last time Western Province would be using their United Rugby Championship coaches for the Currie Cup, but he was unable to give a direct answer.
“I can’t answer that.
“We are quite happy to be involved in the different levels of exposure and experience.”
