The South African participation in the Investec Champions Cup has ended and the inevitable post-mortem focus will be on the reality that the teams aren’t ready yet to compete across two competitions, but it could have been different had there been a better start in December.
The Vodacom Bulls were the only local Champions Cup side to win at the weekend, but their thumping win over Castres at Loftus was effectively a dead rubber game when it came to the elite European competition. They managed to win through to what is effectively the plate competition, the EPCR Challenge Cup, but with all those games scheduled to be away, Bulls coach Jake White might wonder if what he’s really won is a poisoned chalice.
With the Hollywoodbets Sharks also dropping into the Challenge Cup, the competition they won last year to ensure a place in this year’s Champions Cup, and the Emirates Lions also making it through after winning their final Challenge Cup pool game, the remaining SA EPCR focus this season is only on the Challenge Cup.
The DHL Stormers conspired against themselves in losing to Racing 92 in Paris at the weekend and that ensured they finished last in Pool 4, which means that they won’t even be playing in the Challenge Cup. But their coach might feel they have dodged a bullet, provided they can use their non-involvement in another competition to drive their Vodacom United Rugby Championship challenge.
That the URC was already the priority for the Stormers was underlined by the fact that Dobson chose to have the previous week’s man of the match Warrick Gelant and fellow Springboks Manie Libbok, BJ Dixon, Deon Fourie plus a few other frontline players watch the game at the La Defense Arena from the stands.
LOCAL SIDES WERE PLAYING FOR A BOOBY PRIZE
It was a game of small margins so it is reasonable to assume that had those players been playing, the Stormers would have won, probably with a bonus point, and they’d still be in the Champions Cup.
But that’s why you have to cast your mind back to the first weekend of December and recall what happened then, for it was the games played in the first round that determined what happened going forward not only for Dobson, but also the coaches of the other two SA teams. For it was also in that round that the local sides were set on the path towards this past weekend’s prize really being a booby one.
When the Stormers lost to Toulon in Gqeberha, they dropped a home game. Dobson admitted then that their chances of doing well in the Champions Cup were gone, for even if the Stormers did qualify from there, they would almost certainly have a low seeding and have to travel to play a powerhouse opponent if they got through to the round of 16.
Everything in the competition became a bonus for the Stormers after that. Not even in the next home game against the Sale Sharks was the team completely full strength. Dobson’s attitude was “we will give it a go and see what happens”, but “the URC is our day job”.
IT’S NOT ONLY LOCAL TEAMS THAT GO UNDER-STRENGTH
It might not have been thus were the Stormers doing better in the URC, and it is not just the SA sides that get to face a quandary determined by how they are doing in their regular league competition and how the Champions Cup starts for them. The French approach to the European competitions is dictated by how they go in the Top 14 before the EPCR competitions start.
The Stade Francais side that was well beaten by the Bulls was without most of its regular frontline players because the club is languishing in the Top 14 and is involved in an incredibly cut throat promotion-relegation battle. Were they flying in the Top 14, they might have come to SA with their top team.
The Bulls, because the game was played a week after they were in Galway to play a URC game against Connacht, did go full strength for their first Champions Cup game away against Saracens. But unfortunately for them the game coincided with Storm Darragh. Even the English Premier League Merseyside football derby between Everton and Liverpool scheduled for that weekend was postponed, so you have to concede the point to White when he says you had to be there to fully understand just how severe that storm was.
The Bulls just looked completely out of it, stunned by the weather they were expected to play in, from the start of that match, and were well beaten. The loss meant they surrendered the winning momentum they had picked up in the URC and they were on the back foot when they flew back to South Africa to play the Northampton Saints. The Saints turned in a supremely motivated and heroic performance and won in a game that could have gone either way. After that, like was the case with the Stormers, anything the Bulls achieved in the Champions Cup became just a bonus.
FIRST GAME INJURIES HURT SHARKS
The Sharks were the exception on that opening weekend. They did win their opener against Exeter Chiefs. But their victory in a bruising game came at a high cost, as it was in that game that they lost Eben Etzebeth to injury, and he hasn’t played since then. Bongi Mbonambi was also injured in that game, and so were important rank and file players like James Venter and Vincent Tshituka.
So while the Sharks did win, it was also a game where the die was cast for them. The injury crisis meant that the second string team they sent to Leicester the following week effectively morphed towards third string. The Sharks had little option but to go to Welford Road understrength because they had an important URC derby against the Bulls scheduled for the following week. Flying to England and back and then playing the Bulls would have disadvantaged them.

So they were thrashed by the Tigers and returned to Durban without so much as a solitary log point. Given that they were in a ridiculously tough Pool, with French behemoths Toulouse and Bordeaux Begles as their remaining opponents, the Sharks were in a hole.
It became an even bigger hole when during their trip to Cape Town to play the Stormers after Christmas, they lost the influential Andre Esterhuizen and Aphelele Fassi to fairly long term injuries. With Etzebeth still out, they didn’t stand much chance of beating Toulouse, even at Hollywoodbets Kings Park, and if you look at the Bordeaux record this season, and given Etzebeth and company were still out, they were never going to win on Sunday at the Stade Delmas-Chaban.
So like the Bulls and Stormers, they can look back at that first weekend of competition as pivotal. In their case it wasn’t a loss but the injuries they sustained that set them back. Who knows, had Etzebeth and Esterhuizen been present for the Toulouse game, they might have beaten the champions. But they lost, and you cannot afford to lose at home in the Champions Cup.
BEING BEHIND EIGHT-BALL DICTATED APPROACH
Given the poor starts of the respective teams, they were always behind the eight-ball, and it dictated their approach. The prize for the Sharks had they picked up the bonus point necessary for them to secure a spot in the round of 16, was a return trip to Bordeaux in April. They will feel they have dodged a bullet.
The Bulls would have had a similarly tough away round of 16 game had they gone full strength to Castres in their penultimate pool game and won. They dodged a bullet too. Although they do have to go to Bayonne now for a Challenge Cup game. They don’t need to win the Challenge Cup like the Sharks did last year to make it into the Champions Cup, for a top-eight URC finish is almost assured for them, so winning against Stade Francais might have been a curve ball if not a bullet.
If White elects to use the Challenge Cup to improve depth and grow the experience of the youngsters, and Plumtree does the same, then being part of that competition might work for them. The reality though is that the real dodger of a bullet was Dobson and the Stormers for the URC became the only realistic prospect of major silverware for a local team this season after that calamitous opening weekend of the Champions Cup.
FOURTH ROUND INVESTEC CHAMPIONS CUP RESULTS
Ulster 52 Exeter Chiefs 24
Vodacom Bulls 48 Stade Francais 7
Northampton Saints 34 Munster 32
Clermont-Auvergne 33 Bristol Bears 26
Leinster 47 Bath 21
Benetton 32 La Rochelle 25
Racing 92 31 DHL Stormers 22
Harlequins 24 Glasgow Warriors 7
Bordeaux Begles 66 Hollywoodbets Sharks 12
Saracens 24 Castres 32
Toulouse 80 Leicester Tigers 12
Sale Sharks 33 Toulon 7
Round of 16 (Weekend 4/5/6 April)
Bordeaux Begles v Ulster; Northampton Saints v Clermont-Auvergne, Leinster v Harlequins, Glasgow Warriors v Leicester Tigers, La Rochelle v Munster, Toulon v Saracens, Castres v Benetton.
EPCR CHALLENGE CUP RESULTS
Newcastle Falcons 7 Montpellier 26
Cardiff Rugby 19 Connacht 28
Pau 28 Ospreys 31
Emirates Lions 60 Dragons 10
Scarlets 38 Vannes 28
Lyon 68 Toyota Cheetahs 21
Edinburgh 36 Black Lion 15
Bayonne 55 Gloucester 17
Zebre 21 Perpignan 39