Havn't seen anything of this years cup
Here is an article from planetrugby on Willem de Waal and the final..........
"The Blue Bulls have tagged fly-half Willem de Waal as the Cheetahs' most lethal weapon when the two sides go head-to-head in the Currie Cup Final at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Saturday.
In fact the Bulls utilised a considerable portion of their training time this week in working on neutralising the Cheetahs pivot, who scored all 16 his team's points in the semi-final against Western Province last week.
"We are definitely going to look at a few things to counter him," Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer told the media.
And they would be even more alarmed to hear that De Waal is relishing the opportunity to take on the Bulls in their own backyard, because he regards Loftus as one of the best venues in the country.
De Waal, acknowledging that it is never easy to win at Loftus, said he is still very excited about Saturday's Final.
"Loftus has one of the best surfaces in South Africa," he told this website. "If you kick the ball well, it will travel for 'miles'," the Cheetahs pivot said.
And he is also not in the least concerned about facing a sea of blue flags on Saturday.
"We enjoy playing in front of such a boisterous crowd," De Waal said. "You can take a lot of positives out of the situation. It is all about your attitude," he said about the vocal Bulls fans.
De Waal also felt the Cheetahs would have learnt a lot from last year's Final, also against the Bulls at Loftus, and that the players won't be overawed at all this time round.
"And we also played very well against the Bulls in our Premier Division matches this year. Those kind of performances gives us confidence coming into the Final," the fly-half said.
The matches he refers to were a 26-16 win for the Bulls at Loftus back in August, when the Cheetahs were without skipper Naka Drotske and were reduced to 14 men for more than half the match, as well as a 26-22 win in Bloemfontein last month.
The Cheetahs were reduced to 14 men twice in the game at Loftus, for 10 minutes in the first half when veteran prop Ollie le Roux was yellow carded for an off-the-ball incident. Then in the 48th minute he was red carded for foul play, which meant his team spent more than half the game (42 minutes) with just 14 men on the field.
But the biggest positive for the Cheetahs, according to De Waal, is the coaching of Rassie Erasmus - who captain the Cheetahs when they lost to the Bulls in last year's Final.
"Our game is much more structured now and everybody knows what is expected of them. Tactically we are far better prepared and better equipped than last year.
"He [Erasmus] pays a lot of attention to detail, such as the basics and our defence. He is adamant that our defence should be rock solid.
"Last year we simply conceded too many penalties and this year we are able to force the opposition into mistakes with our defence. In the play-offs - like the semi-final against Western Province last week - it is not about how many tries you score.
"You simply have to score more points than the opposition and you achieve that by making fewer mistakes than they do and stopping them from scoring."
De Waal said he is happy with his game at present, although he went through a slump earlier in the season.
"Earlier in the season my game was not up to scratch, but I'm playing much better rugby now."
Asked about the kicking game against the running game, he said the current bunch of Cheetah forwards make it much easier to employ a kicking game.
"It is always more enjoyable to play in a team when the guys know what to expect from you. The Cheetahs used to play this expansive game, running almost everything. We used to some very big scores, but often lost games as well.
"But that [expansive rugby] is not how you win a Final. You have to score more points than the opposition, even if it is just one point more. And it doesn't matter how you get those points.
"Obviously you have to find some balance between a kicking game and an expansive game, because you could kick much or run at the wrong time. But in a crucial match like this you don't take too many chances," De Waal said.
Having started his career at Western Province - having been born and bred in Paarl - he moved to the Leopards in 2002, where he played for two seasons.
He joined the Cheetahs last year and was an instant hit in Bloemfontein - kicking them to victory in both the 2004 and 2005 Currie Cup semi-finals ... ironically both times against WP at Newlands.
Last year he played for the Bulls in the Super 12, first at fullback (with limited success) before moving to fly-half where he kept Derick Hougaard out of the side.
This year he played for the Cats in the Super 12".
By Jan de Koning