Currie Cup brickbats and bouquets
Player of the Tournament - Duane Vermeulen
This year's Absa Currie Cup provided laughter, tears, cheers and jeers for the fans, but most of all it provided some great rugby as the top eight sides in South Africa went head-to-head.
There were a number of great individual moments, from Phillip Burger's gymnastic efforts to Patric Cilliers' Jonah Lomu imitation when he flattened Meyer Bosman, with Kabamba Floors' jumping in the line-out also raising a couple of eyebrows.
The Sharks' valiant 26-18 win over the Blue Bulls at Loftus Versfeld as they overcame a one man deficit to pull off the unlikely victory was a magnificent game of rugby, as was the Boland Cavaliers monumental win over Western Cape neighbours Western Province.
In all it was a magnificent competition and in our humble opinion deserving of a few accolades, so we took the liberty of making a few awards to some of the competition's worthy heroes.
Here are our Currie Cup brickbats and bouquets:
Team of the Tournament: 15 wins in 16 games and the 2007 Currie Cup champions - enough said. The Free State Cheetahs win this one.
Meritorious mention: Lions and Sharks
Player of the Tournament: A tough call with a number of great performances being a feature of this year's competition. The award goes to the Cheetahs' young flanker Duane Vermeulen. He wins the award for consistent performances throughout the tournament - solid at the breakdown and good with the ball in hand. He also was key in setting up the try of the tournament.
Meritorious mention: Walter Venter, Heinrich Brüssow and Ryan Kankowski.
Coach of the tournament: The Cheetahs' Naka Drotské wins the award. After being written off after the departure of Rassie Erasmus (at short notice), the coach beat the odds to make the Cheetahs the best side in the Currie Cup and champions for the third consecutive time.
Meritorious mention: Eugene Eloff, Gary Gold
Best try: No contest on this one, the Cheetahs get the award collectively for their try against the Blue Bulls in the semi-final. This is what happened: The Blue Bulls were battering at the Cheetahs' line. Dewald Potgieter was brought down less then a metre away and then Hottie Louw picked up to bash on but Kobus Calldo smashed him to ground. The ball squirted away to Louw's right where Wian du Preez dived on it securing it for the Cheetahs and suddenly the ball was with outstanding young flank Duane Vermeulen. He got away from François van Schouwenburg's grasp, hurdled falling Neil Powell and gave to Gavin Passens on his left. Passens raced ahead and gave to Eddie Fredericks, right wing on the far left and off Fredericks went racing down the field with only Morné Steyn chasing to keep the try far from the posts. It was a 99-metre try. It was the match's lightning.
Best kick: Another 'no contest' here, Willem de Waal's kick to win the Final. The perfect example of BMT (Big Match Temperament).
Most tries: John Mametsa crossed the tryline more than anyone in the tournament, scoring 14 tries in 15 games. Next came Eddie Fredericks on 11.
Come-back of the season: Going from a 3-91 thrashing to winning your next game 15-10 is a turnaround of note, and the Boland Cavaliers were the side that pulled it off. After their opening game demolition at the hands of the Cheetahs they pulled themselves together and beat Western Province in the Western Cape derby.
Most embarrassing loss: The men from Cape Town - Western Province. They got it all wrong when they went down 10-15 in their clash with tournament minnows the Boland Cavaliers.
The springboard award (for impressive gymnastics display): Phillip Burger. His Aerial antics are always entertaining - as is the debate as to how long it would take him to end his career with a broken shoulder.
Points Machine: Willem de Waal. He was 68 points ahead of his closest rival in the points scoring race - 212 points in 16 matches at an average of 13.25 per match - he is worth two converted tries every match.
Currie Cup eel (the most slippery customer on the field): The hardest player to keep your hands on had to be Jaco Pretorius. The outside centre slithered his way through the opposition defence on a number of occasions and was often rated the most dangerous player on the field by opposition.
The 'so close but no cigar' award: The Lions, who lost out to the Cheetahs in the Final after being ahead 18-6 at one stage.
Survivor of the year: After losing all of their Currie Cup clashes it looked like the Falcons were doomed to relegation, but they scraped through with two narrow wins in their promotion/relegation clashes to qualify for the 2008 competition.
The new kid on the block: Walter Venter. The Lions' inside centre came out of nowhere to cement his place in the Johannesburg-based side's No.12 jersey in the latter stages.
Who's your daddy?: Picture the scene - it's a ruck, the forwards are all involved and at the back Rory Kockott is yapping away. Now Kockott, while he is an excellent No.9, can irritate even the calmest of people. Not much has been done about it before, but on this occasion Lions lock Anton van Zyl just couldn't take any more and took it upon himself to do the rest of the team a favour and shut Kockott up. He stood up from the ruck, reached over and slapped Kockott. Van Zyl shut the scrum-half up all right - for all of about ten seconds.
Jonah Lomu award: It's a tap-and-go and Meyer Bosman lines up a tackle on some unknown kid from the Sharks. He's not overly tall, he's pretty big but the centre seems sure he can handle him. The next thing Bosman knew he was flat on his back eating studs as Patric Cilliers ran all over him before handing the ball off to Stefan Terblanche some five metres further down the field. Terblanche scored the try.
By Gareth Green and Paul Dobson