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Stormers coach Allister Coetzee may be more concerned with winning the SA conference than the Super 15 title this year.

ZELIM NEL

SA RUGBY have promised the Kings a place in Super Rugby from 2013 and they’re now clinging to the hope that Sanzar will clean up their mess by granting South Africa a sixth franchise, but local teams should gear up for the inevitable relegation battle.

At the conclusion of the inaugural Super 15 season, CEO Greg Peters confirmed in a roundtable meeting that Sanzar (rugby’s southern hemisphere governing body) had sold the competition in it’s current format to various stakeholders for a period of five years, and that it would remain unchanged until 2016.

Saru deputy president Mark Alexander announced yesterday that SA Rugby were eager to “debate” the expansion of the competition and had developed a “workable solution” to present to Sanzar.

“We want to get a sixth franchise in,” he said. “We believe it will be good for rugby and we don't want to see anybody go down.

“I think there is a window of opportunity, provided we sell a workable solution about 16 franchises playing in the competition,” he added.

“The last thing we want to do is to make a choice to push one of the franchises out.”

In the event that Alexander’s mission proves to be impossible, SA Rugby want to be seen to be applying a fair process of relegation.

But they’d also like to avoid declaring that the last-placed team in the South African conference will be relegated – just in case one of the Stormers, Bulls or Sharks have a nightmare season.

This might explain why a decision on the process of relegation, set for last week, was deferred until March.

The Stormers, Bulls and Sharks have all been nominated for industry awards related to their thriving commercial success.

By contrast, the Cheetahs have not finished higher than 10th in the competition since 2006, and the Lions – who peaked with two 11th-placed finishes since 2002 – are rumoured to be on the brink of bankruptcy.

The interminable political wrangling at SA Rugby will probably ensure that a South African team does not win the Super Rugby title this year, given that Stormers coach Allister Coetzee and his Sharks and Bulls counterparts will be instructed to concentrate all available resources on winning the SA conference – even if it means resting stars against the Aussies and Kiwis.

A Stormers side missing stalwarts such as Andries Bekker, Dewaldt Duvenage and Duane Vermeulen made light work of the Lions last week and exposed some of the fundamental shortcomings that will hold the Joburg outfit back this year.

Coach John Mitchell turned the perennial whipping boys into Currie Cup champions in 2011, but the Lions – and for that matter, the Cheetahs – don’t have the personnel to contend for anything other than a mid-table finish at best.

The Stormers have an abundance of talent in several positions and they followed up a trip to the 2010 Super 14 final by winning the SA conference title last year.

However, the resignation of mastermind director of rugby Rassie Erasmus, the loss of centres Jaque Fourie (Wild Knights, Japan) and Johann Sadie (Bulls), and the absence of an established tight five has fuelled speculation that the Stormers will slowly begin to slip out of contention.

Fortunately for the Stormers, Coetzee isn’t the only South African coach who has been forced to spend the past few weeks consolidating his team.

Keegan Daniel will lead the Sharks out this year after Springboks John Smit (Saracens) and Stefan Terblanche (Ulster) opted to finish their careers abroad.

And 22-year-old Dale Chadwick may have to start at loosehead prop after Bok scrum juggernaut Beast Mtawarira broke his leg in training last week, while swing-prop Eugene van Staden was allowed to sign for Biarritz in November.

The Bulls find themselves in even more trying circumstances.

Long-time technical guru Heyneke Meyer has been lost to the Bok job, while the veterans of the Bulls’ recent Currie Cup and Super 14 success have also moved on, including Fourie du Preez and Danie Rossouw (Sungoliath, Japan), Bakkies Botha (Toulon), Gurthro Steenkamp (Toulon) and Victor Matfield (retired).

Coetzee knows that a solid performance against the Cheetahs on Saturday will go some way towards boosting confidence in the Stormers’ ability to defend their conference title, and during a season in which rugby bosses look likely to jettison who they think is the weakest South African team, perception is everything.