Come Saturday, the Free State Cheetahs will look back on another successful Currie Cup, regardless of the Currie Cup Final result.

Ironically however, Cheetahs success always comes at a price.

You see, come the season's end, fat-cat franchises — locally and from abroad — will again line up for bargains from Bloemfontein's player stocks.

It's an unfortunate fact — the Cheetahs usually do not have the financial power to keep their top players, or thereby build quality depth in their ranks.

Yes, it's the professional era and money talks and genuine player loyalty might have been left behind in the amateur era. The onus is on teams to run their franchises business-like, in order to create enough income to keep their top players.

Grey College the world's best schoolboy rugby nursery?

Still, it does not seem quite right to see the same old story at the Cheetahs each year: The team gets rebuilt, the team does well, and, again, the best players get ransacked at the end of the season.

If not for Grey College Bloemfontein — perhaps the finest rugby school in the world — the Cheetahs might count amongst middle-tier unions like Griquas or the Leopards.

Grey attracts the cream of Free State and other Provinces' schoolboy rugby players. Through Grey's superb structures these boys get nurtured into fulfilling their rugby potential. Many Cheetahs — and indeed Springboks — players are former Grey pupils.

It also helps that the Cheetahs brainstrust has a good eye for talent from outside of the Free State, although they can hardly afford seasoned superstars.

They tend to rely on acquisitions of talented players from the smaller unions, or talented reserve players — those needing a breakthrough or consistent game time — from the so-called 'bigger' unions.

But what happens when these players then become star players? That is the biggest worry for the Cheetahs...

During the early 2000s, Free State had Zimbabwean-born maestro Kennedy Tsimba to call upon. He scored an incredible amount of points in his years donning the Cheetahs No.10 jersey. He was eventually lured to Pretoria, where he did not get a lot of game-time for the Bulls and eventually suffered a serious knee injury. He quietly disappeared from the spotlight and currently plays in the Currie Cup First Division for the Griffons.

One almost gets the impression that the big-money unions not only buy Cheetahs players to gain their services, but also to withhold them from the Cheetahs — thereby 'pulling the cheetahs' teeth'.

How long will they be able to hang onto Brüssow for?

During Rassie Erasmus's involvement as coach (the first of which came in his final year as a player), the Cheetahs experienced a 'Golden Era' of sorts, reaching three consecutive Currie Cup finals (2004-2006) and then also winning the 2007 final under (then) rookie coach Naka Drotske.

One of the Cheetahs' main weapons during this time was points-machine Willem de Waal. De Waal and Erasmus are now contracted at WP (a team that the Cheetahs have beaten with some regularity over the years), along with loose forward talent Duane Vermeulen — a future Springbok if ever.

Makes one think doesn't it?

To the Cheetahs' credit, they have been able to keep the services of Springbok dynamo Heinrich Brüssow — for the time being that is.

Accomplished Springbok Juan Smith (yet another fine loose forward talent from the region!) has also been a loyal servant of Cheetahs rugby since the start of his career — and along with stalwart Hendro Scholtz it seems these two have set their roots in Bloemfontein.

Those established stars aside, other teams will surely be eager to get their hands on new stars, Ashley Johnson, WP Nel, Lionel Mapoe and Robert Ebersohn — to name just a few, come transfer time.

The Cheetahs will undoubtedly fight to retain their services — but it will be a daunting task — and only time will tell if they can find a way to do so.

Centre talent Ebersohn, SA's Young Player of the Year in 2008, has had limited time in the Cheetahs jersey thus far, but his 'time' cannot be far off.

Ebersohn the next big Cheetahs thing

This year he focused on helping the SA Sevens team on the IRB Sevens circuit, as well as captaining the U20 'Bokkies' team, before picking up a season-ending ankle injury when he returned to the Currie Cup mix in the middle of the year.

With so much expected from Ebersohn, perhaps it was a good idea not to make him a permanent fixture in the Cheetahs backline just yet.

Having a more mature Ebersohn make his breakthrough at the Cheetahs makes good business sense — his price tag is bound to be sky high once he's completed a full season.

It does seem though that the more players the Cheetahs lose, the more new talent they seem to produce.

This scenario might be to the detriment of the Bloem-based union, but as for South African rugby, we are blessed with the quality and depth of players it creates.

  • What are your thoughts? Do you support the Cheetahs, the so-called 'Cinderella' team of South African rugby, or would you rather back the cheque book-heavy teams like WP, the Bulls and the Sharks? Let us know your thoughts below!


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