Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town – It was a bittersweet weekend for South Africa’s Vodacom Super 14 sides, with the Stormers reigniting their title quest but established powerhouses the Sharks going another gloomy step closer to disappearing off the 2010 radar.

At least round four, which was minus the presence of the log-leading Bulls, ended much more strongly than it began, with the Stormers thrashing the Highlanders for a bonus-point win and the Cheetahs doing the Bulls a favour with a wonderfully committed, comprehensive downing of the fancied Hurricanes in Bloemfontein.

Those results atoned nicely for earlier, fresh defeats for the hapless Sharks and Lions, both at the hands of Australian opponents.
The Cheetahs’ record abroad is so horrendous that it is ill-advised to suddenly tout them as semi-finals material this season, especially as they have only a 50 percent record after four matches, all on our soil so far.

But their 16-point triumph over the dangerous New Zealanders will go down as one of the more landmark moments in Super rugby for Juan Smith’s troops, and hopefully a platform for real improvement in the competition.

One negative for the cock-a-hoop Cheetahs was a late knee injury to ace fetcher Heinrich Brussow, with SuperSport analysts afterwards mentioning the dreaded word “cruciate” although no confirmation was available at the time of writing.

The result kept the Hurricanes pinned to fourth spot, with the Stormers catapulting to third after Bryan Habana put the cherry on top of an efficient dismantling of the Highlanders by coolly scoring the key fourth try in the last raid before the siren.

You still somehow feel Schalk Burger’s side have not fully hit their straps as an attacking outfit, but their defensive structure was again absolutely first-class.

The Highlanders made a dapper effort to whisk the ball through hands, but the way the Stormers defence – often superbly marshalled by Jaque Fourie – fanned out so tirelessly meant they were running into brick walls all the time and got increasingly flustered.

Another continuously strong facet of the Newlands-based team’s game-plan is their driving play -- especially lethal off the lineout near the opposition corner-flag.

It was a good outing for some of their less trumpeted players, with scrumhalf Dewaldt Duvenage making plenty of sniping breaks and their second-choice hooker Deon Fourie – a late starter in the place of in-form Tiaan Liebenberg – producing an all-action showing as well.

It may sound overly pessimistic considering the amount of rugby left in the 2010 competition, but the Sharks are almost certainly out of semis contention already.

That is, unless they can miraculously turn around their campaign by winning eight of their remaining nine matches.

Only in 2006, the first year when Super 12 became Super 14, has a side reached the last four with seven victories.

That team was the Bulls, who sneaked into fourth, but it was a precarious thing with three teams ending on 38 points and the Loftus outfit somehow squeezing in on best “for and against” record.

So eight wins is a far likelier passport and that seems a very tall order from here for John Smit’s side, considering their lengthy losing culture this season – it extends back to their two losses in the pre-season Neo Africa Tri-Series, remember, where even the limited Western Force got the better of them.

They got an extremely raw deal in both the refereeing and TMO departments in their agonising 25-21 loss to the Waratahs in Sydney, but the sobering fact remains that, for all the Sharks’ renewed signs of “spirit”, they still couldn’t knock over a home side a long way off their own A-game and just having done a long haul back from South Africa.

Just a thought: are the Sharks a franchise in denial of some deeper-rooted problems than they realise or are prepared to acknowledge?
The Lions may be as winless as the Sharks after four rounds, but there were rays of light in their tenacious defeat against the Brumbies, where they denied the victors a bonus point.

It seems they are beginning to sort out their defensive frailties, and while a clean sweep of defeats on their thankless five-match overseas leg remains a strong likelihood, they may be in a position to usefully subdue one or two Antipodean sides once back on South African soil.

Next weekend’s fixtures (home teams first):

Friday: Chiefs v Crusaders, Waratahs v Lions. Saturday: Brumbies v Sharks, Bulls v Highlanders, Stormers v Hurricanes. Sunday: Reds v Force. Byes: Cheetahs, Blues.