Currie Cup Dynasties
Sir Donald Currie's donation: The Currie Cup trophy
Two provinces have dominated the Currie Cup since it was first in competition in 1892 – Western Province and the Blue. Those two have had dynastic achievements. The closest to a dynasty after those two is Natal, who were the great side of the 90s.
Somebody great with vision, energy and personality starts a dynasty, often through contest and it is often carried on by men of vision, energy, personality and success – whether it is all those Chinese dynasties from Xia to Qing, the Ptolemys of Egypt, the House of Macedon, the Caesars, the Tudors, Stuarts and Windsors of England, who, like the Blue Bulls, changed their name for political reasons. the Tu’i Tonga of Tonga, or the Kennedys and the Bushes of the USA. Always the inspiring leader, whether Genghis Khan or Chaka Zulu, was able to take his tribe with him to greatness, sometimes an insignificant tribe to start with.
We are going to look at three unions with four leaders and a triumvirate. Those are the unions with the dynasties.
The game in some from or another started in Cape Town and that gave the Cape a head start. Western Province dominated the competition whose tangible reward was a sponsor’s cup – the Currie Cup, gift of Scottish Sir Donald Currie of the shipping line which did most business between England and South Africa.
Originally competition for the Currie Cup was at a centralised tournament. Western Province won eight consecutive tournaments in which it took part. In 1899, on the brink of the South African War, it did not compete in the tournament which Griquas won.
The outstanding player and leader was Barry Heatlie, a farm boy of the farm Glen Heatlie near De Wet which is near Worcester. He played in every match Western Province played from 1891 to 1904 and was the captain from 1894 to 1904. In that time he played 34 times for Western Province. No other Western Province captain has had so long a reign, nor one as successful for on each occasion when the Currie Cup was in competition Western Province won. He played in 28 Currie Cup matches for Western Province, never once on a losing side. Oubaas Markötter, the legendary Stellenbosch coach and national selector, who died in 1957, said of Heatlie: “Heatlie – I played with him and against him – is the greatest all-round forward South Africa has produced…. I am inclined to put him down as the best captain ever to lead a Springbok side.”
Heatlie was a big man for his time. He weighed about 210 lbs and stood 6ft 3 ins. Nobody in the “jumbo pack” of Paul Roos’s 1906 Springboks was taller and nobody in that side weighed as much as 200 lbs. He was the giant of his time, the man they nicknamed Fairy or Ox.
Of course there were other great players at the time – none greater than Japie Krige, the shy genius who became the first South African rugby player to be hero-worshipped.
Western Province’s Currie Cup hegemony continued between the World wars, at a time when South African rugby ruled the World. In that period the Currie Cup was up for grabs nine times and Western Province won it seven times. There were great players at the time – Phil Mostert, the Osler brothers, Danie Craven, Boy and Fanie Louw, DO Williams, Gerrie Brand and many more. But the greatest of them was an aristocratic, autocratic man of the people – Bennie Osler. Regal on the field, demanding in the rugby standards he set, he was the most egalitarian of men off the field. The people called the Malays worshipped King Bennie whose togs would be collected from the changing room at the end of a match and returned immaculate to the changing room before the next match with a potion or two to help the man who changed the way rugby was played, introducing tactical kicks such as the grubber, the diagonal kick, the kick into the box and dropping for goal in the best Naas Botha style. He was a great thinker of the game.
The next leader of the Western Province dynasty had two bites at the cherry – one as an inspiring captain and once as an inspiring president – Jan Pickard, the greatest Newlands personality of the last fifty years or more.
In the fifties he led Western Province to two Currie Cup victories (Two of three in his time) and then passed the baton on to great Doug Hopwood, the cleverest rugby player of his time, and then great John Gainsford, the best centre in the world in his time, for another two successive wins. At this time the Currie Cup did not happen every year and certainly not in the year of a tour. An unbroken line of Currie Cups starts only in 1969 and played a great role in the years when South Africa battled to get overseas competition for the Springboks.
After World War II Northern Transvaal came to challenge Western Province and has in some ways beaten them. Apart from the competition of rugby strengths it had all sorts of inbuilt rivalries – North vs South, new vs old, liberalism vs conservatism, legislature vs administration, mine dumps vs mountains, brandy & coke vs wine, biltong vs snoek and in several other ways which would be unkind.
For Northern Transvaal, later the Blue Bulls, the Currie Cup was the perfect competition, where they could enjoy one final shoot-out at their Loftus Versfeld kraal developing a brand of rugby ideal for winning, a simple formula based on powerful forwards, many of them from the armed forces and the police, with some students to do clever things. And they had a triumvirate to establish a dynasty which was more successful than any other in winning Currie Cup finals – 22 out of the 44 played, followed by Western Province with 12.
Certainly it had the mercurial genius of Hansie Brewis and the laughing genius of Frik du Preez but it was really its triumvirate that established the dynasty - Brigadier Buurman van Zyl, the gentle man of unyielding discipline, Oom Buurman’s disciple Thys Lourens and the blond genius Naas Botha. Their records speak loudest:
Van Zyl, who had played in just over 70 matches for Eastern Province, coached Northern Transvaal for 13 years. In that time they won the Currie Cup outright nine times and shared it twice. He coached them in 116 matches of which 99 were won, four were drawn and 13 were lost.
Lourens played 168 times for Northern Transvaal, 84 times as captain, an ordinary player who led extraordinarily well and with fearless dedication. He was on the winning side in eight Currie Cup finals, four times as captain. His career came to an end in the 1978 final when he was well over 35 years of age.
Botha was 19 when Oom Buurman brought him into the Northern Transvaal side in 1977. He still holds the record for most Currie Cup points – 1699 in 123 Currie Cup matches in a career that ended in 1992, 2511 points in 179 matches altogether.
In 1981 Jan Pickard was elected president of the Western Province Rugby Union. At his first meeting he stated: ““We will win the Currie Cup this season, I don’t mind if we have to steal it or buy it or have another one made but the Currie Cup is coming back to Cape Town this year.”
Western Province did not win it that year but they did the year after that and went on to create a record of five final victories in succession. But then they had a powerful pack of forwards, the genius of the Du Plessis brothers and the lively leadership of Divan Serfontein. When Western Province wanted a lock, Pickard got Theuns Stofberg.
The Nineties belonged to Natal who had battled not long before to get out of the B Section of the Currie Cup. Their great character in the Nineties was their committed coach with the staring eyes Ian McIntosh, who gathered around him a captain of thoughtful concern in Gary Teichmann, the genius of André Joubert, the Rolls Royce of fullbacks, Henry Honiball, the toughest flyhalf in the world, powerful Mark Andrews and others, including clever Dick Muir who went on to become a successful coach in the new century when, despite all other attractions, the Currie Cup still remained the Holy Grail of South African rugby, the Currie Cup Final the match all players most want to play. After all there are many tests in a year but only one Currie Cup Final.
Are the Free State Cheetahs on the brink of establishing the fourth Currie Cup dynasty?
Winners of the Currie Cup
1892: Western Province
1894: Western Province
1896: Western Province
1897: Western Province
1898: Western Province
1899: Griqualand West
1904: Western Province
1906: Western Province
1908: Western Province
1911: Griqualand West
1914: Western Province
1920: Western Province
1922: Transvaal
1925: Western Province
1927: Western Province
1929: Western Province
1932: Western Province & Border
1934: Western Province & Border
1936: Western Province
1939: Transvaal
1946: Northern Transvaal
1947: Western Province
1950: Transvaal
1952: Transvaal
1954: Western Province
1956: Northern Transvaal
1958: Western Province
1964: Western Province
1966: Western Province
1968: Northern Transvaal
1969: Northern Transvaal
1970: Griqualand West
1971: Northern Transvaal
1972: Transvaal
1973: Northern Transvaal
1974: Northern Transvaal
1975: Northern Transvaal
1976: Orange Free State
1977: Northern Transvaal
1978: Northern Transvaal
1979: Western Province
1980: Northern Transvaal
1981: Northern Transvaal
1982: Western Province
1983: Western Province
1984: Western Province
1985: Western Province
1986: Western Province
1987: Northern Transvaal
1988: Northern Transvaal
1989: Western Province
1990: Natal
1991: Northern Transvaal
1992: Natal
1993: Transvaal
1994: Transvaal
1995: Natal
1996: Natal
1997: Western Province
1998: Blue Bulls Northern Transvaal)
1999: Lions (Transvaal)
2000: Western Province
2001: Western Province
2002: Blue Bulls
2003: Blue Bulls
2004: Blue Bulls
2005: Free State
2006: Free State & Blue Bulls
2007: Free State
2008: Sharks
Summary of Victories
Western Province: 32 (four times shared)
Blue Bulls (a.k.a. Northern Transvaal): 22 (four times shared)
Lions (a.k.a. Transvaal): 9 (once shared)
Sharks (a.k.a Natal): 5
Griqualand West: 3
Free State Cheeths (a.k.a. Orange Free State): 4 (once shared)
Border: 2 (both shared)
By Paul Dobson
