Between dodgy referees, a glut of injuries and reputed player strikes, the Super 14, which two weeks ago was looking pretty solid from a South African point of view, is suddenly not looking too rosy at all.

The past couple of weeks have seen some incredibly inept performances by the men in the middle and it is looking increasingly likely that Bryce Lawrence’s handling of the Sharks, Brumbies game is going to come back to haunt the Sharks, who are rapidly falling off the pace in the race to the semifinals. Lawrence is certainly not alone, of course, because a certain South African whistleblower is not going to be on the Stormers Christmas list this year either.

But perhaps most startling about the refereeing gripes emanating from grumpy SA fans this year, is that we actually have the backing of a couple of Aussies! It’s not every day an Australian commentary team bags the ref on behalf of a SA team, but that is exactly what happened in the Sharks, Brumbies match — justification after all these years!

Not that anything will actually be done to the men in question, but it is good to know that we are not the only ones picking up the inconsistencies…

More frustrating than the refs, however, has to be the enormous amount of injuries being picked up, particularly by the Stormers, who have lost Tonderaai Chavhanga, JD Moller, Schalk Burger and Tiaan Liebenberg for the remainder of the season — in the space of just two weeks!

The Capetonians are certainly not out of it, and you have to doff your hat to coach Rassie Erasmus for how coolly he is handling the crisis — make no mistake that it exactly what it is — but it is going to be one incredibly tight, and nerve-wracking race to the play-offs this season.

But at least the Stormers, and indeed the Sharks, still have a chance of making the semis, which is more than you can say for the Bulls, who seem to be lurching from one crisis to the next — the latest being news of a strike…

The fact that Bryan Habana, Wynand Olivier and Bakkies Botha all reportedly threatened strike action if Botha was not released from his contract is pretty scary stuff and could set a precedent for rugby players across the country. Personally I don’t think any of them are worth it — their egos have obviously gotten the better of them — no player is...

If Bakkies wants to go so badly perhaps it is time to let him do exactly that. And as far as Habana and Olivier are concerned, I am not sure I would want those types of personalities disrupting the team dynamic, or what is left of it anyway.

Habana is undoubtedly a star player, both for the Bulls and South Africa, but he should not need reminding how quickly one’s star can fade with a couple of average performances. I can’t help but feel somebody is giving the trio incredibly poor advice, but really the minute you start giving in to player demands, well, that is a slippery slope you do not want to head down.

Looking at the Bulls, however, it seems something it terribly wrong at the union, with management and players jumping ship faster than you can say ‘wooden spoon’ and it is certainly no surprise that Victor Matfield is now looking at staying in Europe.

Who can blame him?

But after a better than expected start to the season South African rugby is again starting to show a familiar trend of spiralling downwards — you certainly would not think that we won the World Cup last year.