The first weekend of this season’s Investec Champions Cup confirmed what we already knew - if there’s going to be a South African winner, it can only be the Hollywoodbets Sharks.
That might seem an odd thing to say as while they were the only South African winners in the premier European competition this weekend, they also played at home to the Exeter Chiefs, who happen to foot the English Premiership log at this point, while the Vodacom Bulls travelled away for their defeat to Saracens.
The home-ground advantage is massive in the Champions Cup. The DHL Stormers’ loss to Toulon was the first loss at home for a South African team in the group phase after two completed seasons of SA participation in the competition. The only other loss was in the knock-out phase, last year’s round of 16, also the Stormers and also against a French powerhouse team, La Rochelle.
JAKE IS A REALISTIC DREAMER
But there’s more to the perception that only the Sharks can realistically think of claiming Champions Cup silverware than just what happened this past weekend. The Bulls director of rugby Jake White was asked by an English journalist on the eve of his team’s game whether he harboured hopes of his team winning.
He said no, for that would require his side having to beat the likes of La Rochelle, Leinster and Toulouse in successive weeks. Jake did surprise his players when at his first team meeting after taking over the Springbok coaching reins in 2004 after the national team had been dumped at the quarterfinal stage of the previous World Cup that they’d win the 2007 RWC. But that was a realistic dream. Clearly, he’s not into unrealistic dreams.
It all comes down to budget. The Bulls have only a fraction of the budget that the top teams in the Champions Cup have, and they are significantly richer than the Stormers, who in turn are in a different bracket to the Emirates Lions, who are currently in the EPCR Challenge Cup.
White has built up his squad quite impressively over the past two seasons and has created depth. However, what his team doesn’t have is the money for the overseas stars that bolster the top French teams and even, this season, where they have RG Snyman and Jordy Barrett on their books and primarily contracted no doubt to win the Champions Cup, Leinster.
FRENCH TEAMS CREATE DEPTH BY BUYING OVERSEAS STARS
Injuries hurt most of the South African sides more than they would some of those overseas sides. When a team like La Rochelle, or even Toulon, develops a problem with depth in a certain area, they can just contract from overseas. They have a cheque book that can attract the top overseas stars, as was evidenced in the years when Toulon had so many top Boks playing for them.
The Toulon team that beat the Stormers at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium didn’t have quite as many Galactico overseas stars as they have had in the past. But they did have, among others, the ace Los Pumas No 8 Facundo Isa, who scored a try, as well as the experienced Welsh international flyhalf and former captain Dan Biggar, who was the starting pivot for the British and Irish Lions in the 2021 series.
The La Rochelle side that came to Cape Town last year, with the likes of Wallaby behemoth Will Skelton in tow, had a World XV look to it. Toulouse don’t have as many overseas stars, but they have the core of the French team in a way not completely dissimilar to the way Leinster have an Ireland team plus now Snyman and Barrett.
So when Stormers director of rugby John Dobson masked his disappointment at being defeated by saying he was proud of the way his men fought against an international team with a much bigger budget, he was being quite literal.
Someone said to me the other day the Stormers don’t look like the team they were a few seasons ago when they played two successive Vodacom United Rugby Championship finals, winning one of them. Well, quite literally they aren’t - against Toulon, there was no Steven Kitshoff, no Frans Malherbe, no Salmaan Moerat, for much of the game there was no BJ Dixon, there was no Deon Fourie, there was no Evan Roos, there was no Dan du Plessis, and there was no Damian Willemse.
That’s more than half a team of important players in that winning run of a few years back who are out injured. But there’s more. There is also no Hacjivah Dayimani. The loose-forward was a huge factor in the Stormers’ ability to strike from transition in that winning first season in the URC, but when a French club came calling, they didn’t have the money to keep him.
STORMERS NO MATCH FOR SHARKS’ BUYING POWER
Make no mistake, while Dobson was praised for his brilliant contracting a few years ago, Manie Libbok and Dayimani being standouts, it hasn’t been so good since then. Or he has just been unlucky. Let’s take a look - Lizo Gqoboko was lured from the Bulls when Kitshoff went to Ulster. He’s hardly played because he’s been injured most of the time. Ben Loader, a high-profile signing from England, has also hardly played because of injury.
Hendre Stassen was injured for most of his first season and now, I believe, he’s gone to France. Sti Sithole came down from the Emirates Lions and has been outstanding when he’s played, but he’s more often off the field through injury than on it. Wandesile Simelane yet to crack the first-choice team. Kitshoff was the only major signing in the past offseason, outside of the excellent JD Schickerling (he is an excellent buy), but he was injured playing for Western Province and might never play again.
As I say, unlucky, but the Stormers’ problems when it comes to contracting might also be reflective of their buying power. They now have equity partners, but there are debts to pay off. The business needs to be stabilised. And it might explain why while it is understood Andre Esterhuizen’s first choice was Cape Town, he chose Durban. The Stormers couldn’t match what was being asked for, the Sharks could.
Dobson arrived late in Gqeberha because he went to watch the Stormers' second-string team play against Griquas. It was an important game for him to assess the available depth. The Cape has an enviable wealth of promising talent coming through but much of it is not quite ready to be pushed into Champions Cup action.
But that might have to be the case on Saturday against Harlequins, because Keke Morabe is now also out for the season and Manie Libbok looks like he’s out for a while too. Dan du Plessis’ absence from the midfield is going to be hard to fill, particularly if Jean-Luc du Plessis has to move to flyhalf in the absence of Libbok.
DURBANITES WELL COVERED IN MOST AREAS
It sounds like Dobson is making excuses when he lists his injuries, but they are valid reasons for why the Stormers should forget about this year’s Champions Cup now and instead focus on just making the URC top eight so that they can retain their Champions Cup status for next season. Once their injured players are back they will have a chance of doing that as on the evidence of their games against the Sharks and Toulon, there is nothing wrong with their pack.
But the point is that when Dobson is hit by an injury crisis, he has to look at homegrown young talent. The French teams can buy in from overseas. So, in a manner of speaking, the Sharks have shown they have the buying power to lure Boks away from overseas clubs (Esterhuizen, Trevor Nyakane, Jason Jenkins).
RICHARDSON WOULD WIN GAMES FOR CAPE TEAM
The Sharks are very well covered in most areas. When their coach John Plumtree spoke the other night about the potential crisis he faced at looseforward when Dylan Richardson “who is normally a hooker” had to go to openside it was hard not to chuckle. Richardson has played a lot of his rugby in the No 6 jersey and if he was wearing that number for the Stormers right now in the continued absence of Deon Fourie they’d be winning a lot more games.
The other injured flanker, Vincent Tshituka, is also well covered by one of the off-season buys from the Lions, his brother Emmanuel, who in time might become an even better player than he is. The Sharks can let a good scrumhalf like Cameron Wright go to France because they have so many good halfbacks on their books.
In short, they do have the money, and while their depth lower down, which is where the poor contracting before Plumtree’s arrival is still sometimes felt, might get tested at phases of the URC when it is played under strength, the entire Champions Cup is at full strength. I wouldn’t put my money on the Sharks winning the URC for that reason, but I would consider putting it on them in the Champions Cup. Certainly a lot more than the Bulls or Stormers.
For the simple reason that their financial clout means they are the one local side that can match the likes of Toulouse, La Rochelle and Leinster in terms of having current first-choice match day Boks on their books. And all of them are World Cup winners so the Champions Cup shouldn’t daunt them.