While the reasoning may be understandable, it is rather unfortunate from a South African perspective that the Vodacom Bulls appear to be undermanned for their away Investec Champions Cup quarterfinal matchup against the Northampton Saints at Franklin Gardens on Saturday.
Come to think of it, although it wouldn’t have been good for their Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign, it is also a pity the DHL Stormers never got over the line last week against La Rochelle. The Cape side are definitely good enough to be in the top eight of the Champions Cup, they were done in by the draw, and being in that competition’s Pool of Death.
Certainly, it is hard to imagine many of the other teams in the top eight outside of Leinster, who get their chance on Saturday, and Toulouse pushing the two-time reigning champions like Salmaan Moerat’s side did last week.
It is also unfortunate that the Hollywoodbets Sharks never did enough last season to compete in the Champions Cup. If they had, with their full-strength team now showing some form, they might have been playing a quarterfinal in the elite competition this weekend and not just for the secondary EPCR Challenge Cup.
Having just one team in the quarterfinals doesn’t help South African rugby duck the negative comments that seem to be constant when overseas critics and punters speak about this country’s participation in what many of them want to jealously preserve as a European competition.
SA ISN’T ON ANY MAP OF EUROPE
Let’s be fair, the naysayers do have a point as it stands. South Africa is definitely not on any map of Europe, and the Champions Cup, known for most of its history by fans as the European Cup, is seen by people in the northern hemisphere as an opportunity to get out and travel and support their team.
Those who’ve played in the competition will tell you about the travelling supporters that flock to the towns and cities where their teams play away games. Many people try to get to all the away games their teams play, they plan the season around those trips. It is why if you read the comments sections in overseas newspapers, you will find some complaints that there is only a one-week gap between the round of 16 and the quarterfinal round - it doesn’t give enough time to plan their trips to away venues.
The point though is that coming to South Africa adds an extra challenge for those who want to be travelling supporters and it is obviously impossible for many, though I am sure those who do make it out here enjoy their experience and take good stories back. There did seem to be a smattering of rather noisy La Rochelle fans at the DHL Stadium last week.
SA NEEDS A TEAM TO GO DEEP
What may be needed for the South African participation to be more accepted is for one of the local teams to go far in the competition. The Bulls beat Saracens on the same weekend back in December that the Stormers beat La Rochelle. Both of those should have been statement performances, but many of the overseas rugby media platforms focused elsewhere rather than trumpet the Stormers’ win as signifying the arrival of the SA challenge.
They can’t ignore the performances though if they come late in the knock-out rounds, and that is when a statement performance needs to be delivered. Unfortunately, the Bulls have injuries, plus there’s no doubt their coach Jake White has next week’s important URC game against Munster at Loftus in his mind. So the chances of a local team making the semifinals are greatly diminished.
Yet what a great statement it would be if a not completely at full-strength Bulls team could overcome the front-runners in the Gallagher Premiership. It wouldn’t just make a statement about the South African challenge, it would also tell us a bit more about the relative merits of our franchise/provincial rugby versus England’s.
The Bulls went to Exeter last season for a pool game with a second-string team and the Stormers were out on their feet when they played their quarterfinal against Exeter at Sandy Park this time last year. The Sharks did lose last year away to the Harlequins but they were below par. Otherwise, the record against England sides is a good one.
Northampton didn’t have their England players in tow when they lost to the Stormers in a friendly a few weeks ago, but then the Stormers were without even more players due to the national alignment camp that week. Does that result offer the Bulls, who beat the Stormers seven days before that friendly game, some hope? I’d wager that if the Bulls were at full strength, it certainly would.
A GAME OF CRITICAL IMPORTANCE FOR THE SHARKS
The Bulls’ trip to Northampton is not the only game of importance for South Africans this weekend. The Sharks are recruiting marquee players for next season but given that a portion of the URC is played under-strength, it is the Champions Cup that recruitment policy should be directed at.
If Edinburgh turn the Sharks over in Saturday’s lunchtime game, something they did do when their current coach Sean Everitt was at the Sharks in 2021/2022, then there will be no Sharks in next year’s Champions Cup. When they have all their Springboks, the Sharks might just be equipped to push the big three in the Champions Cup next season, but they can’t if they don’t get there.
Previews and predictions for the two SA teams’ games:
Investec Champions Cup
Northampton Saints v Vodacom Bulls (Northampton, Saturday 21.00)
Jake White has been criticised overseas by people who don’t understand that his complaints about travel this week were not directed at the competition but at the sport’s governing body in his country. Yes, the South African teams and the game in this country have to make sacrifices to compete in Europe, and Northampton is a long way from Pretoria. The local teams have to live with that.
But what White was really saying, to paraphrase him, was “If we are going to be in the competition we need to give ourselves the best chance of doing well in it otherwise we are wasting our time”. In other words, go big or go home. Sending a professional sports team overseas on eight separate flights was ridiculous, there’s no argument against that.
Teams going under-strength for away games is part and parcel of European rugby, particularly when the French sides are involved. The Lyon team that was thumped at Loftus last week was weakened by that club’s concern over their Top 14 position. The promotion/relegation setup in France is decidedly cut-throat, with the bottom two teams dropping out.
But that doesn’t always mean those teams have no chance of winning, and make no mistake, White has done enough good work on his franchise’s depth to be able to say his side has a chance of winning in Northampton even without so many top players. Indeed, they would have beaten Lyon, who at home were at full strength, with a mix-and-match selection (which is what Saturday’s is likely to be) in Lyon in December had Jaco van der Walt, who is expected to play against Northampton, nailed a kick a few minutes from the end.
The Saints have been in great form and are playing an eye-catching style of rugby but if the Bulls big men can get into the game early and control the play in the initial stages, they may well be in with a chance of making the statement for South Africa that needs to be made. A win will mean that there’s a SA team everyone has to talk about when the semifinals arrive.
But while the Bulls team is only to be announced later on Friday, it does look likely to be one that may lack a bit of continuity and therefore there shouldn’t be too much expectation of an away win. The margin should be similar to the one the Saints enjoyed over Munster last week.
Prediction: Northampton to win by around 10 points.
EPCR Challenge Cup
Hollywoodbets Sharks v Edinburgh (Durban, Saturday 13.30)
Did Edinburgh know when they played the Sharks in a URC game a few weeks back that they may well be heading back to Durban for their Challenge Cup quarterfinal? It wasn’t spoken much of at the time, and of course, Edinburgh still had to get through a difficult away round of 16 tie in France. But they comfortably beat Bayonne and here they are, back in South Africa and with a bolstered squad plus the learnings they got from playing at Hollywoodbets Kings Park just two weeks ago.
The Sharks butchered a lot of points in that game and maybe it is a good thing if it helps keep the Sharks players’ feet on the ground. They have the experience of a big swing when playing the same team twice in the space of a few weeks in different competitions - last season they put 50 past Munster in their Champions Cup round of 16 games but were then held to a draw by the same opponents in the URC. This game is too important for the Sharks, who desperately need to be part of the Champions Cup, which is their ultimate prize in this competition, to afford a slip-up. Last time against Edinburgh they won the forward and territory battle and produced a busy and dominant performance that should have given them more than a 23-13 scoreline. With flyhalf Siya Masuku and the exciting new centre Ethan Hooker both gaining in further confidence in the solid win over Edinburgh last week and the Sharks tight five starting to look quite formidable now that they have a Bok front row fronting it, the Sharks have momentum and should be able to ride that wave to another victory on Saturday.
Prediction: Sharks to win by 15
The other Investec Cup quarterfinals (home teams first)
Bordeaux Begles v Harlequins (Saturday, 16.00)
Prediction: Bordeaux to win by 15
Leinster v La Rochelle (Saturday, 18.30)
Prediction: Leinster to win by 8
Toulouse v Exeter Chiefs (Sunday, 16.00)
Prediction: Toulouse to win by 20
The other EPCR Challenge Cup quarterfinals
Gloucester v Ospreys (Friday, 21.00)
Clermont Auvergne v Ulster (Saturday, 13.30)
Benetton v Connacht (Sunday, 13.30)