REVIEW: Hints of a coastal renaissance in URC

It was just one game and one swallow doesn’t amount to a summer and all that, but the DHL Stormers did do enough in their first of two crucial festive week derbies to suggest they can still challenge for the Vodacom United Rugby Championship trophy they won in 2022.

It may seem a long shot because they are still 13th on the log, where they have been for the past three rounds. However, with few teams managing to be properly consistent in a season where the competitors are so evenly matched, the gap in log positions between fourth and where the Cape side is now is not as significant when it comes to log points as it is in log position.

With the Hollywoodbets Sharks rattling their sabres with their win over the Vodacom Bulls, making it two wins in two for home teams in the local derbies, the inland domination of the race from a South African viewpoint is no longer as real as it appeared a month ago. The one at Hollywoodbets Kings Park was the second defeat for the Bulls, while the Emirates Lions have now lost three in a row since being unbeaten after four games.

Of course, the Sharks’ challenge we knew about. One of the odd things about this past weekend was how many people made the Bulls favourites for the Durban game. Some even spoke of them being overwhelming favourites and the win was described as a triumph against the odds. What? It was the Sharks’ home game in their own conditions at a time of year they really shouldn’t lose at their headquarters.

Yes, there were injuries that weakened the Sharks and it was a tough week for the hosts as they also had illness to deal with, but their coach John Plumtree spoke a lot of sense afterwards when he reminded us on television that while they were without Eben Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi and Siya Kolisi, his team still had enough experience and enough Springboks in it.

WHY SHARKS WINNING IS EXPECTED NOW


The Sharks aren’t the team they were this time last year. The culture has changed, Plumtree has succeeded in his mission of changing the atmosphere and the drive of the Durban team. It was a scraped win, as the supersport.com preview predicted it would be, but it was the expected result because this season is one where the Sharks have developed a winning habit, as reflected by their close wins.

In many ways their game against the Bulls was similar to both the games the Sharks Currie Cup teams played against the Pretoria team towards the end of the domestic season. In the sense that the Bulls had their chances to win, there were long periods where it was the Bulls who dominated - yet it was the Sharks who prevailed. It would probably have been the other way around last season.

Their recent scraped win over the Stormers was another case in point, as of course was their win over the Lions in the domestic final, and depending on which teams come off better in this Christmas week when it comes to players being fit and available, next Saturday’s return coastal derby should be another tense affair where temperaments will be tested.

It is definitely the Stormers who are under the most pressure. The comprehensive win over the Lions, thus breaking a losing sequence of four games across both the URC and Investec Champions Cup, was just the first step in what the Stormers have to do to get back into the challenger bracket.

STORMERS ONLY HALFWAY THERE

Their coach John Dobson spoke afterwards about his team being only halfway there, meaning to their mission of winning both home derbies. They’ve still lost more games than they’ve won, and they will be back in trouble if they lose to the Sharks. However, because they picked up full points against the Lions, defeat to the Durbanites won’t be a complete knock-out blow to their chances.

The Stormers were still way short of their best even though they scored five tries against the Lions. But they did give an indication of how much more potent they can be when they start heading back towards full strength, which they are starting to do even though Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is going to be in a race against time to be ready for the Sharks and Jean-Luc du Plessis and Leolin Zas look unlikely starters after sustaining injuries.

Certainly the Stormers have a pack to travel most if not all comers in the competition, and we already know that includes the Sharks as we saw it even in defeat in the Durban game at the end of November. JD Schickerling was magnificent against the Lions, Salmaan Moerat wasn’t far behind, and Deon Fourie’s return had the anticipated impact.

Fourie should be better off for having played his first game in eight months. Warrick Gelant was brilliant at fullback, and while he still did the odd weird thing, Manie Libbok was less flaky than he has been in Stormers clothing this season, and for that read he was less inclined to over-play, too. Much may depend though on the fitness or otherwise of Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who went off in the 27th minute against the Lions with a hip pointer.

NO TRAIN SMASH FOR BULLS BUT MOMENTUM IS BROKEN

For the Bulls, like the Lions in specifically the URC, it is now three losses out of three spread across the URC and Champions Cup, and their next game is a difficult away Champions Cup clash with the French club, Castres. They had their chances of winning, as they did in the Currie Cup semifinal against the Sharks, and didn’t take them.

So the frustration of their director of rugby Jake White afterwards was completely understandable, although he was right when he said the defeat shouldn’t be seen as a train smash. It was only their second in the competition, and they are still well placed. At this point, they are also the best South African team despite the defeat.

However, it is undeniable that the wave of momentum the Bulls were riding on a few weeks ago has now been broken, and perhaps the break in the season afforded to them by the fact that unlike the Sharks and Stormers they are not playing this week is a timely one. They can refresh and refocus.

For the Sharks there is no such break and like the Stormers, they will have a disrupted buildup to Saturday’s eagerly awaited game because of Christmas. Both teams will also be keenly assessing the fitness of key players.

Generally it was a weekend where home teams won their derbies, the exception being the exciting Munster win over Ulster, where both teams scored in the last five minutes, first Ulster with what looked like a match winning try only for Munster to then strike off the last move of the game.

Most games were in keeping with the one in Durban too, meaning they were close, with Benetton scraping it against Zebre by just one point, and ditto Ospreys against Scarlets.

With Connacht fighting back from a significant early deficit against Leinster to lose by just eight, the Glasgow Warriors win over Edinburgh and the one in Cape Town were the only results decided by a significant margin.

WEEKEND URC RESULTS

Ulster 19 Munster 22

Benetton 11 Zebre 10

DHL Stormers 29 Emirates Lions 10

Hollywoodbets Sharks 20 Vodacom Bulls 17

Ospreys 23 Scarlets 22

Leinster 20 Connacht 12

Glasgow Warriors 33 Edinburgh 14

To be played: Dragons v Cardiff (26 December)