Let’s get this said at the outset - the EPCR Challenge Cup comes a poor second to it’s bigger brother, the Investec Champions Cup. As the name suggests, it’s a challenge competition played by the teams that don’t make it into the main event. Yet that is the very reason why the Hollywoodbets Sharks desperately need to win it.
Sharks supporters who are old enough to remember the days when the Sharks were Natal and known as the Banana Boys might recall that in those horrible Currie Cup B Section years from 1982 through to the end of 1986 there was never much boasting value in coming top.
What mattered was that the team needed to get back into the A Section. Winning the B Section wasn’t enough - you had to play a promotion/relegation game against the bottom A Section side, and the Natal team of that era just never got that one right. Not even in 1984, when they won a semifinal against the second finisher in the A section, Free State, but lost the promotion relegation to Northern Free State in Welkom.
When they went back into the A Section in 1987 it was by decree of the sport’s governing body in this country, who were looking at the bottom line, meaning the money generated by a team that drew people to Kings Park in their thousands even in those dark days.
NEED THE BIG GUNS TO GET EXCITEMENT UP
But times have changed. These days it is teams like Toulouse or La Rochelle that bring the crowds in, not really Zebre and Edinburgh, who the Sharks played in the two playoff games that secured them their ‘home’ semifinal against Clermont-Auvergne at The Stoop in London. Or for that matter Oyonnax and other teams they played in the pool stages of the competition.
The Sharks have several marquee players on their books and a rugby public that has shown support for their team even during a lamentably poor period. Both those players and the loyal supporters need to be excited, and that means they need to be in the Champions Cup.
Which is what this phase of the Challenge Cup is all about for them. It is no longer possible to get into next season’s Champions Cup through the conventional route of finishing in the top eight of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship. They can get in though by winning the Challenge Cup, and South African rugby as a whole needs them in the upper echelon of European cup competition just as much as the Durbanites themselves do.
Winning the Challenge Cup will do in terms of getting into the Champions Cup, there is no promotion-relegation game to negotiate afterwards like there was in the 1980s. But the silverware will also satisfy another desperate need for South African rugby as a whole - it will place a footprint, even a relatively insignificant one at this point. And playing in the final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, scheduled for the night before the main event at the same venue, will mean South African involvement in finals weekend.
UNBELIEVABLE HYPOCRISY
While the organisers of the EPCR competitions, like their URC counterparts, have embraced the South African participation and have spoken of it as a positive, the media and supporters in Europe remain lukewarm.
They also remain hypocritical. Leinster have yet to send a full strength team to South Africa for a URC game in three years of that competition. The French teams that are under relegation threat in the Top 14 opt out of taking either the Champions Cup or the Challenge Cup seriously and field under-strength sides.
In the past week I have seen articles in the English media calling for the South African teams to be ditched on the basis that the travel factor leads to the fielding of under-strength teams. The Vodacom Bulls going to England to play Northampton Saints with a second string team is still being carped upon even though that was weeks ago now and Leinster’s second-string side have in the meantime come to this country and conceded 86 points to 24 across their two matches.
TOO MUCH RUGBY IS THE PROBLEM
That Leinster came here understrength will probably be seen as vindication to the naysayers as it suggests that the Dublin-based Irish province has problems with the travel involved. Yet that is not entirely true. In all three seasons of the URC, Leinster have come here at this point of the season when they have to balance their commitments in the sharp end of the URC season with their participation in the Champions Cup playoffs.
The problem is less the travel, for after all a team like Leinster can fly here on an overnight flight and there is no jetlag consequence to a flight between similar time zones, but the bigger issue of there just being too much rugby.
With the core of their team having played a Rugby World Cup and won a Six Nations already this season, Leinster would probably have played the last two URC games understrength even if they were played at home.
I am looking at precedent when saying that. Last year the URC and Champions Cup playoffs were all played consecutively because it was a World Cup year. Leinster faced a five match playoff sequence across both competitions if they were to achieve their objective of winning both the URC and the Champions Cup.
All of those games were in Dublin, so there was no travel factor, and yet they went under-strength against Munster in the URC semifinal and it was one of the reasons they lost. Indeed, the failure of Leinster, often held up as an example of a club (province in their case) with great depth, is an indicator of being committed to two competitions, something the South African teams are going to have to adapt to if they want to achieve success in the Champions Cup.
EVEN LEINSTER STRUGGLE TO DO BOTH
Leinster have great depth but is it enough for them to be successful in both competitions? The first two seasons of the URC, which because of the South African inclusion is now a lot more competitive than the PRO14 that they used to dominate, suggests maybe it isn’t. Not if you are talking about going all out for both trophies.
It may not be a coincidence that the one local team still in the EPCR competition is the one team that is not still fighting in the URC. You need a massive contracted squad of quality players to be able to really push for success in both, and South African franchises can’t afford that just yet.
But then arguably neither can the English clubs, who have had to give way in the European competition over the past few years to the rise of the “super-clubs” - Leinster, La Rochelle and Toulouse.
Having the Sharks, with all their Springboks, back in the Champions Cup next year will help this country’s participation to become more noticeable and meaningful. And winning the Challenge Cup will mean that a South African team has its name inscribed on at least one EPCR trophy. So go for it Sharks, the country is depending on you!