You can dig deep in the search of apt adjectives to describe South Africa’s return from the second round of the Investec Champions Cup and you could also do so in describing the reaction in particularly the UK to the approach of the local teams.
Maybe two words that begin with ‘a’, abysmal and appalled, most accurately sum the two things up. When it came to UK reaction, the veteran rugby writer Stephen Jones predictably led the charge in The Sunday Times, speaking about how South Africa’s sending under-strength teams to games north of the equator diminished the competition. His colleague, the former England flyhalf Stuart Barnes, who is usually a little kinder to this country, wrote a column headlined “Champions Cup diminished by South African clubs with bigger priorities.”
It is almost traditional for us South Africans to react with outrage to those opinions, but this time it is really hard to disagree with either of them: Is there a point to local teams being in the Champions Cup when there is a general acknowledgement that the logistics of playing across two competitions and the travel involved make it impossible for anyone but the richest local franchise to win it?
HYPE DIED WHEN WE SAW SHARKS TEAM
That richest franchise is of course the Hollywoodbets Sharks, but even they ended up going significantly under-strength to Welford Road, where their game against Leicester Tigers was being built up as one of the game’s of the round. Certainly there was opportunity there for the Sharks - a win against Leicester would have pretty much secured their round of 16 qualification.
But that hype was before we learned on Friday afternoon that the Sharks hadn’t just left their injured Springboks back in South Africa, they’d pretty much left ALL their recent World Cup winners at home with the exception of Jaden Hendrikse and Trevor Nyakane.
It ended up with what looked close to a second string Sharks team taking on the Tigers, and although there were some signs of promise in the beginning, the result was the expected one. There is still a chasm between the Sharks’ first choice team and second team, and it showed when they shipped more than 50 points.
The Stormers have such a big injury crisis at the moment that you’d hesitate to suggest that the team they put out against Harlequins at The Stoop was even second string. In several areas there were players much lower down on the rankings as that, with the players who would otherwise be first back-ups for this kind of game now frontline players while the usual first choices recover from long term injuries.
If you think there’s really a massive problem with the Stormers’ depth cast your mind back to this time last year. They had a second string side play Leicester last December, and very nearly won the game. The difference is they had significantly fewer injuries back then than they do now.
BULLS LOSS WAS THE REAL UPSET
Given the teams the Sharks and the Stormers put out onto the field, the real shock this past weekend wasn’t the two away defeats, but the Vodacom Bulls losing to Northampton Saints at Loftus. In a 3pm kickoff at altitude in the middle of summer! It was only the second time a visiting team has won in South Africa in a group game, the first one being the Stormers’ loss to Toulon in Gqeberha a week earlier.
The Saints and Toulon showed that if you select your top team and travel with a test match mentality, you can cross the equator and win. But then those teams only cross the equator once a season, not several times like the SA sides do. And therein, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet would have put, “lies the rub”.
The local coaches do face an almost unavoidable catch-22. Both Stormers coach John Dobson and his Sharks counterpart John Plumtree, once the game was over and they could drop the pretence that “we’re going there to win”, and they could be more honest because they weren’t trying to motivate their players, conceded afterwards that what they had done wasn’t good for the competition.
DOBSON MINDFUL OF DAMAGE DONE
Dobson in particular was mindful of the damage that these lopsided under-strength games do to the standing of the competition not only in the eyes of overseas critics and fans but also locally. There’s a big marketing campaign underway trying to sell the Champions Cup to local fans who might be confused about the different competitions their teams compete in and their standing. The two away results, and the weakened teams selected, did nothing to endorse the line that the Champions Cup is the world’s top club competition.
“It’s not a good look. I am probably over-speaking now, but we have to (sit down and work this out). We have got to make sure we can stay here. Not being part of the Champions Cup would be disastrous for South African rugby,” said the Stormers director of rugby.
“This competition is probably what has helped us so much in World Cups. Every breakdown is a competition. Every scrum is a 20-second contest. Every lineout or maul is a contest. That has been a massive boost for South African rugby… As South Africans we have to be better. Our team we put out there just wasn’t good enough.”
YOU HAVE TO DO WELL IN URC TO PLAY CHAMPIONS CUP
For Dobson though, like with Plumtree, the catch-22 comes in the sense that the decision to go under-strength to England was unavoidable if the respective coaches weren’t going to compromise their team’s chances of winning important Vodacom United Rugby Championship derbies this coming weekend.
The Stormers host the Emirates Lions and the Sharks host the Bulls and they are important games to win because if you don’t do well in the URC you just don’t get to play in the Champions Cup. So it’s a vicious circle.
The Stormers in particular need to get their season back on track as they sit with just two wins in six URC starts, but the Sharks have spoken about building Kings Park into a fortress. Facing the Bulls with a team tired from travel as well as ravaged by injury wouldn’t be a wise way of going about that.
PLUMTREE HITS AT 12-MONTH TREADMILL
There is of course another problem plaguing the SA challenge in the various club competitions - those who recognise the folly of thinking that this country can continue to operate on a 12 month season and it not having negative consequences will be pleased that Plumtree has highlighted it.
“We’re all competitive. I want to give Leicester a good hiding, don’t worry about that,” said Plumtree.
“But the reality is that we’ve got to look after these athletes. They are no robots. And right now they are treated like robots. They are playing in northern hemisphere rugby and southern hemisphere rugby and it’s crazy. I feel sorry for them.”
Plumtree was referring there to his many Boks who don’t have a proper off-season because at international level they are committed to the southern roster, meaning the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, which is played when northern hemisphere teams are in their off-season. Their big opponents in the Championship, the All Blacks, are now sunning themselves watching cricket and lying on the beach while their arch-rivals are continuing with their club season.
Whereas the Kiwis are having a proper off-season, the Boks are still busy with the same season they were in when they won two games against the All Blacks in the Championship and they will have only two or three weeks of break thrown in sporadically, and not a proper off-season, between now and when those teams clash again in the Championship in New Zealand next year.
Plumtree is right, it is crazy, and if you let him talk longer he’d probably remind us that it isn’t just the Boks who are impacted - the decision to play the Currie Cup in what should be the South African off-season means that many of the rank and file franchise or provincial players are on a 12 month treadmill too.
DURBANITES STILL ON TRACK BUT THERE’S RISK
It’s not sustainable and something has to give. The Sharks know what they are doing and in making his selection for the Leicester game Plumtree was showing faith in the ability of his top players to beat mighty Toulouse when they visit Durban in January. Win that game and the Sharks will be through to the round of 16. And there’s always a chance Toulouse will send an understrength team, for it is not just the local sides that do it although they have more reason to.
For the Bulls and Stormers it has become a lot more complicated. They can both still advance if they win both games, home and away, scheduled for January, but the more realistic view is that they need to focus on the URC. Certainly the Stormers, who play two games over the festive period whereas the Bulls only play once, with a proper break coming for them over Christmas.
SARACENS CHALLENGING FRENCH AND LEINSTER
It was another weekend where the French teams arguably rattled their sabres with the most ominous intent, with champions Toulouse for the second successive week posting more than 60 points against a team that has a big standing in the sport. Last week it was Ulster, this time around they were away to Exeter Chiefs.
Two time champions La Rochelle smashed the Bristol Bears while Toulon followed up their win over the Stormers in Gqeberha by edging out URC champions Glasgow Warriors, who by the way also didn’t send their top team. The Warriors showed how these away weekends should be dealt with though by picking up two bonus points that will hold them in good stead.
The other French powerhouse team, Bordeaux Begles, were under the cosh a bit at times in their first half against Ulster but eventually pulled away for a 21 point win. And the game was at Ulster’s home, the Kingspan Stadium.
But it wasn’t all about the French teams, with Saracens following up their strong home performance against the Bulls by winning away against Stade Francais. Saracens are past champions in the competition and theirs was a statement performance. So of course was the Saints’ win in Pretoria, while the Sale Sharks kept the English flag flying against French opponents by easily beating Racing 92.
Then of course, there’s Leinster. The three in a row beaten finalists continued in the way they do at this stage of the competition, meaning by winning, with a resurgent Clermont-Auvergne being their victims this time in a hard fought game.
Perhaps the surprise of the weekend was the Italian team, the URC side Benetton, pipping Bath, thus inflicting the second defeat of the campaign on last year’s beaten Gallagher Premiership finalists.
Second round Investec Champions Cup results
Sale Sharks 29 Racing 92 7
Castres 16 Munster 14
Vodacom Bulls 21 Northampton Saints 30
Ulster 19 Bordeaux Begles 40
Leicester Tigers 56 Hollywoodbets Sharks 17
Leinster 15 Clermont-Auvergne 7
Harlequins 53 DHL Stormers 16
La Rochelle 35 Bristol Bears 7
Stade Francais 17 Saracens 28
Benetton 22 Bath 21
Toulon 30 Glasgow Warriors 29
Exeter Chiefs 21 Toulouse 64