The decision to shift the scheduled opening round of Vodacom United Rugby Championship derbies to prioritise the Carling Currie Cup final has not gone down well with the two coastal coaches, John Dobon of the DHL Stormers and the Hollywoodbets Sharks’ John Plumtree.
It probably says quite a lot about how much the domestic competition has shifted in the order of priority that in a week where two Currie Cup semifinals are being played the head coaches at the major unions were involved in a URC online session looking ahead to that competition. Plumtree’s team is playing on Saturday, but his focus appears to be much more on what it means to his URC buildup.
The URC kicks off next weekend, 20/21 September, but with the Currie Cup final scheduled for 21 September a decision was made to shift the local derbies scheduled for that day to a later unspecified date. It was going to be a tough start to the competition, with the Stormers hosting last year’s beaten finalists, the Vodacom Bulls, and the Sharks playing the Emirates Lions, but both Plumtree and Dobson would prefer to have played those games as scheduled.
MOST TEAMS VOTED AGAINST POSTPONEMENT
Indeed, it is difficult to understand how the decision to make the postponement came about, because it is understood the Bulls also voted with the two coastal franchises to keep the schedule as it was when the parties met to discuss it. It appears the Emirates Lions, playing as the Fidelity ADT Lions in the Currie Cup, were the only ones pressing for the change.
“We were happy to play a team in the Currie Cup final if we got there and also play in the URC derby on the same day,” said Plumtree.
“That was what everyone wanted to do barring one province I believe. The URC was supposed to start next weekend and that was what we were working towards, all our planning was geared towards that. The games scheduled for next week are now indefinitely postponed to a period post-Christmas, and that is not ideal.
“Now we don’t know now how we should plan around the Springbok resting protocols. The organisation has really got to be better than this. The decision has a big impact on the planning for our URC campaign.”
EDGE TO URC WARMUP IS ONE BENEFIT
The Sharks will use Saturday’s semifinal against the Bulls as a pre-season warmup for the URC, and Plumtree said that having something riding on the game might have the benefit of adding more of an edge than there would normally be for a practice game. However, in a pre-season warmup usually teams rotate and sometimes work in chukkas, something that will obviously not be happening in a Currie Cup semifinal.
“It’s a unique situation we find ourselves in. We used the Currie Cup as an opportunity to play a group of younger players, then it was always the plan to use the later games as pre-season games for the guys who will be playing in the URC and are coming off their pre-season. I suppose the positive is that these games have something on them, with a semifinal this week and last week’s game (against the Bulls) was a big one in Durban.
“However, we can’t use 28 players (as we normally would for a pre-season game). There is that benefit to it (there being an edge to the game), but obviously some things aren’t great. It is not the ideal situation, but it is what it is.”
SETBACK FOR STORMERS
Plumtree’s Stormers counterpart, Dobson, has admitted he was furious when he first heard of the scheduling change, as three of the four URC franchises didn’t want it and his pre-season planning had been meticulously thought out and has now had to be changed.
The Stormers were due to do their URC season launch at the start of the this week but it had to be postponed because the sudden gap before the start of the URC season, which now starts with the Stormers going overseas to play the Ospreys on 28 September instead of at home, necessitated a hastily planned training camp for this week.
“It has been a huge setback for us. We had approached the Currie Cup carefully, making sure it helped our URC preparations, and as you can imagine, as would be the case with the other coaches, we had everything planned up to the scheduled start of the URC season,” said Dobson.
“To have the opening game indefinitely postponed means I have been on the phone trying to organise a friendly. We need a warmup game before the URC, as now there is too big a gap between our last Currie Cup game and the start of the URC.
“We were looking forward to starting out by playing at home. There is some inventory benefit to playing the Bulls later in the competition, but playing them in the first game it was what we were preparing for. I agree with Plum, it is really poor. We’d have planned differently around the Currie Cup. The Griquas game was going to be our last game before the Bulls, but then when the change came we had to recalibrate. A lot of our guys are not match ready.”
POTENTIALLY BIGGER SPECTACLE
Dobson is right - with there initially being just a fortnight break between the end of the Currie Cup season and the start of the URC, the controversial timing of the domestic competition, with the mid-year months supposed to now be South Africa’s off-season, did at least have the benefit of offering an opportunity to use the last few games to build into the URC.
Now there is a three week break before the start for a team not involved in the play-offs, in this case the Stormers, and that is too long a gap at this time of year between a warmup game and the real thing. It is not clear whether Dobson has managed to get an opponent for a warmup game ahead of the tough start away against Ospreys.
And it could be argued that going into a long URC and European season off two domestic playoff games, with no break between the Currie Cup final and the start of the URC, could come back to bite those teams during the forthcoming season - that is if they play full strength teams in the remaining Currie Cup games.
"If the Bulls and Lions play each other in the final it will have the benefit of being a greater spectacle than the last few finals have been," said Plumtree.
But he made it clear it was one of very few benefits he could see in the situation.