Sharks coach John Plumtree says that Western Province labeling the hosts as favourites for this Saturday’s Currie Cup final is nonsense. Really?

The Western Province team selected for the final has six players that are still eligible for the U21 team (including the whole front row), has an average age of 23 and finished third on the log. The Sharks have undoubtedly shown themselves to be a far more consistent Currie Cup team, have much more Springbok and big game experience and are unbeaten at home in the competition. Do we really have to react to Allister Coetzee’s handing over of the favourites tag by going, “Yeah right, Allister. Pull the other one.”

It’s a lose-lose situation when Coetzee is posed with a media question like ‘Who do you think the favourites are?’. If he says his team are, he’s arrogant. When he says the Sharks are, he’s too negative. And please let us never encourage people to ignore the merits of the question with a statement like “It’s great just to be in the final”. That’s in the same ballpark as any crony pundit that eats away time from a vacuous TV rugby show with pearls of meaninglessness like “At the end of the day, it comes down to who wants it the most.”

Coetzee clearly doesn’t want any association with that favourites tag. Apart from the obvious reasons like the ones listed above, can you blame him? His team are in the throes of an 11-year major trophy drought. (Don’t worry, Vodacom Cup. Not all of us have forgotten about you.) That’s bound to bring an attitude of trying to calm anyone down who thinks Western Province are expected to go and win any trophy. Besides, look at what all those years of expectation have done to Robbie Fleck’s hair.

Also, who said making the Western Province team believe they’re underdogs is necessarily a bad thing? You get the feeling that when it comes to characters like Eben Etzebeth and Duane Vermeulen, you could well get them at their mean, aggressive best if you tell them they’re not good enough just before kick-off.

The only combination on the field where you can claim that Western Province have probably got the upper-hand is at lock, where Etzebeth is in the throes of an incredible rookie season. How many times has a player gotten to play in the final after only playing two Currie Cup games in his career? I would go through the annals of the competition’s history to check this for you, but I couldn’t be bothered, and don’t have the time.

People have criticised Coetzee’s for having an attitude that’s too defeatist. Well, whether you agree with him dropping Marcel Brache for Damian de Allende or not, it’s certainly not the action of a coach who’s just going to go through the motions and protect himself behind the underdogs tag. It’s a gamble that he thinks he needs to make to have a better chance of winning. No-one would have pointed fingers at a supposed wrong selection if he picked Brache and lost. Now, he’s opened himself up to ammunition from his detractors if they lose without him.

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