This Friday the thirteenth Super 14 Rugby starts and then Saturday there is a full slate of games including my Stormers (Cape Town, South Africa) taking on the hated and typically awesome Sharks (Durban, South Africa). The game is in Cape Town so hopefully the crowd at Newlands Stadium will be enough to push the Stormers past the Sharks.
But before we get too detailed in all of this, I think it’s best to make sure everybody gets themselves a favorite team. First of all, Super 14 is a professional club league that pits teams from South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand against each other. The four top finishing teams then go into a playoff (1v4, 2v3, then the winners play) to decide the champion. The teams and their locations are as follow:
Brumbies (Canberra, Australia)
Waratahs (Sydney, Australia)
Reds (Brisbane, Australia)
Western Force (Perth, Australia)
Blues (Auckland, New Zealand)
Chiefs (Hamilton, New Zealand)
Crusaders (Christchurch, New Zealand)
Highlanders (Dunedin, New Zealand)
Hurricanes (Wellington, New Zealand)
Bulls (Pretoria, South Africa)
Cheetahs (Bloemfontein, South Africa)
Lions (Johannesburg, South Africa)
Sharks (Durban, South Africa)
Stormers (Cape Town, South Africa)
Obviously the Stormers are my favorite team but feel free to look up the other teams by clicking the team names for their Wikipedia pages replete with their team mascots, jersey colors, history, and stadium info. Or click this link to the Super 14 site and click the team names listed across the top of the screen (sadly, Wikipedia is probably more informative).
It’s ok, though not advisable, to choose a team other than the Stormers. I think the best way to pick your Super 14 team is to base it on the team’s location. If you’ve been to one of the cities that hosts a Super 14 team and had a good time there, then that’s a good team for you to support. If you haven’t been to any of the cities just imagine which one you’d most like to visit and that’s your Super 14 team (then if you ever get to realize your desire to travel to that city you can possibly take in a rugby game for your favorite Super 14 team; see how that works out?). You are also free to pick a team based on arbitrary things like a chick does. You could pick based on team colors, the mascot (the Reds’ mascot is a Koala bear), or the attractiveness of the players (my special lady friend thinks Tuqiri, of the Waratahs, is “hot”). You should also know that the Crusaders have won the Super 14 (which used to be the Super 12 until they expanded in 2006) in 2006 and last year (2008). So the Crusaders are awesome.
Whatever the case, do a little browsing of the teams. I’ll make the case for the Stormers and South African rugby in a couple of days. After that, solidify who your team with be and the games will start Friday. Here’s the season schedule (note that because teams are on three continents they order their schedules in “tours”, so Cape Town will play a bunch of games at home and against the other South African teams and then go on tour to play the Australian and New Zealand teams).
I’m a Bulls supporter as of right now. I’d like to see Cape Town as my dad was just there last year but since you’re already a Stormers fan, I’ll have to pull for a rival.
Yeah, the Bulls are a fine choice I guess. They are in Pretoria (just outside of Jo-burg), the city that was once the capital of the Afrikaaner country of South Africa while the British held onto the Cape and Jo-Burg. Therefore Pretoria and the Bulls represent the heart of the Afrikaaner rugby lovers.
Unless you live in Durban or Cape Town, that is the most popular team in SA. Plus, I think they were the first to imploy cheerleaders (who, by the by, are crazy hot).
Last year they sucked big time. No idea why. But in 07 they won the whole thing so you have to figure last year’s suckiness was an aberition and they’ll be back to top form this year.
But they often go by the nickname Blue Bulls, which makes me think of Blue Balls and I just can’t support that.
Now you’ve got me thinking about the Bulls cheerleaders, so here are some links.
The first is a compilation set to an 80s song (don’t know why):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opjyMl1CBA8
The second has an appropriate Akrikaans song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olVnWR-hVN8&feature=related
They all look like the girl next door dressed up as a cowgirl. It’s great.
But Here’s my thing. Even though the Bulls girls are hot, if you put a gun to my head and made me pick a South African side other than the Stormers, I’d go with the Sharks.
As you’ll see in the upcoming post there are racial undertones, or more accurately overtones, to SA rugby and the Bulls are kinda the Afrikaaner team. The Stormers are the most cosmopolitan team I’d say and then the Sharks are in Durban which has a huge Indian populaiton to go along with the blacks and whites so it’s fan base is pretty diverse too.
So personally I’d rank my the SA teams I like best in this order:
Stormers
Sharks
Lions
Bulls (due entirely to their cheerleaders)
Cheetahs (bc Bloemfontein is in the middle of nowhere)
Western Force. They’re mine. Coincidentally, also a great porn star name. Gotta like that they are a new team and have placed near the middle for the past 2 years. This just may be the year.
Western Force. Interesting choice. They only have one guy on their team I’ve heard of (Matt Giteau), but maybe they keep winning due to good team chemistry. If that’s the case, very good pick.
Also, Perth is on the other end of Australia from all the other major Aussie cities (Sydney, Melbourne, etc) so they are kind of the outcasts of Australia. Also, Sian was there for her gap year after high school and it is a popular destination for South African and Zimbabwean ex-patriots. So it’s an Australian city with a lot of South African fans.