DEPTH OF RESOURCES CAN FUEL SA’S EUROPEAN CHALLENGE
Some might have thought they were hearing things when Glasgow coach Franco Smith spoke after his team’s thumping at the hands of the Fidelity SecureDrive Lions about the depth differential between the country of his birth and where he is coaching now.
Not only are Glasgow top of the Vodacom URC log, they also mounted a credible challenge in the prestigious Investec Champions Cup, winning their pool games to go into the knock-outs as the second seeds.
Clearly Glasgow are able to compete across two fronts better than the South African teams, but that might come down to them having to travel a lot less more than anything else, for Franco is nonetheless right. I was looking forward to seeing how Glasgow would cope if they went deep into the Champions Cup.
The Scots don’t have the depth of the rich French clubs, and would have struggled to remain fully focused on their two URC games in this country were they in the last four in Europe. As it was, in addition to the mounting attrition rate at his club, Franco saw it necessary to rest key players last week in Johannesburg.
This country does have depth that should be the envy of most of the rest of the world, and it was underlined a few years ago when the captain of one of the Welsh clubs spoke after a game against the DHL Stormers in Cape Town about the talent in the home team. He referenced the Stormers utility forward Ernst van Rhyn, and said, “You can see why he is an international player."
But he’s not an international player. He captained SA at age-group level but has never been capped by the Springboks. The point though, and this speaks to Franco’s point, if he was based in Wales, Scotland or Italy, Van Rhyn, who we saw captaining the Sale Sharks in their Champions Cup quarterfinal, would certainly have played many international games by now.
If you look at the South Africans who have ended up playing for overseas countries how many of them would be regulars at the Boks? I might be missing someone, but I can only think of CJ Stander or Duhan van der Merwe, and in both of those instances it would be debatable. Pierre Schoeman has done wonders for Scotland but would he play ahead of Ox Nche and co? Nope. He might have picked up a few Bok caps, but he’d be mostly a club player.
Along the same tack, would Evan Roos be watching the internationals from the sidelines, as he usually does in SA, if he was aligned to another country, or playing in them? Or for that matter another No8, the Lions captain Francke Horn.
Which is really what Smith was saying when he refers to Springbok quality players who are not playing for the Boks and it might be the one shard of hope for SA when it comes to eventually becoming competitive in the Champions Cup. As pointed out in last week’s column, this country does haemorrhage too many players to overseas clubs and it stymies continuity and succession planning.
But just the sheer volume of talent coming through the SA systems, which has started to accelerate since the switch to northern hemisphere competitions which make it necessary to spread playing experience across two different battle fronts, could in time make up for that. I feel I hear laughter from those reading this, but watch this space.
A FAIRYTALE BREWING AT THE LIONS
I believe in fairytales… Actually, I checked on Google, and that Abba song wasn’t about believing in fairytales, but angels instead (am I now getting confused with Robbie Williams?). Anyway, let’s not digress, the memory of the Stormers’ title winning triumph in the first URC season, which was a proper fairytale, makes me wonder if the Lions aren’t set to do the same thing.
There are similarities. When the Stormers won the SA Shield that season, 2021/2022, a big fuss was made of it as it was the first bit of silverware that franchise/club had seen for a long time. It was assumed they wouldn’t go any further than that. And let’s be honest, most of us thought the Lions’ win in the Shield would be the extent of their achievement this year.
There was also the question of budget. Back then the Stormers were struggling financially, which allowed John Dobson to keep referring to his “little team” without fear of being contradicted. In comparison with the financial clout of the Sharks and Bulls, the Lions are certainly another “little team”.
And yet, as is becoming increasingly apparent, it can happen. The Lions can do a Stormers. A lot will hinge on the result of Saturday’s game against Connacht. That won’t be a gimme for the Lions. Connacht, as they showed against the Stormers, are a well coached team. And they also have what I think the Stormers veteran Deon Fourie some time ago described as “dog”. A team with “dog” is capable of beating the Lions.
But should the Lions get across the line, they will need just one win from the remaining away fixtures against Munster and Leinster to secure a home quarterfinal. It is going to be tough, but Leinster should be through to a Champions Cup final by the time they play the Lions, and everyone knows that after winning the URC last year, the European competition is again Leinster’s main focus.
The Lions game will be very close to the Champions Cup final, so it may be a case of the stars aligning for the Lions. As indeed was the case for the Stormers in 2022.
HOOKER INCIDENT AN EXCUSE TO MENTION 1990
Talking of fairy tales, there have been some in South African rugby down the years that long predate what the Stormers did four years ago. Griquas winning the Currie Cup in 1970 is still spoken about, or written about, by those that remember it, and it is now going on 56 years later.
I watched the 1976 final on television, when the late Wouter Hugo led his Free State team to victory against Morne du Plessis’ Western Province. I was just 11 at the time but can still recall the tears and emotion of Hugo as he embraced a fellow player. It was Free State’s first title in their history after years of coming close.
Natal had seldom come close before they won the Currie Cup for the first time in 1990. They had played in just two finals, one in Durban against Northern Transvaal in 1956, where they lost by a solitary point, and one in 1984, which they reached by default. Wynand Claassen’s team played WP in Cape Town after beating Free State in a semifinal that came about because Natal had won the B Section and Free State were second in the A Section. WP won 19-9.
There was no subtext to Natal reaching the 1990 final - it was a season where they beat all comers other than their final opponents, Northern Transvaal, so just like Free State in 1976, their chances of winning should have been taken more seriously. However, Natal had been a poor second to Northerns, now the Bulls, in the Durban league game, and they lost 28-6 at Loftus two weeks before the final.
So in that context it was a fairytale, particularly as it was achieved in Natal’s centenary season, and the fellows at supersport.com keep count of how often I like to reference that game. I was given a good excuse this week, as was the Mercury’s Mike Greenaway I see, when the Ospreys wing Luke Morgan jumped on Ethan Hooker after the Sharks wing had scored in Bridgend.
It evoked memories for Mike, who was at Loftus as a spectator that day, and I of Jannie Claassens jumping on Tony Watson in that 1990 final after Watson had scored the winning try. Referee Freek Burger sanctioned the Bulls by awarding Natal a penalty from the halfway line, which Joel Stransky duly kicked.
That, and a yellow card at the very least, was what should have happened in Swansea. People tell me that sort of thing happens all the time, and a mate who played wing at a high level tells me that what happens in that instance is that the player who has chased another across the length of the field feels almost duty bound to make some kind of contact after running so far. Even if it is just for show.
Well, in this instance that “show” led to injury, so if it is happening all the time, it is a show that needs to be eradicated from the game. As, by the way, should be the practice of teams waiting for a TMO decision heading to the halfway line as if they know the try has been scored.
For goodness sake, there are enough stoppages slowing down play. Players should be made to wait in position for the TMO decision rather than wasting time by having to be called back from beyond the halfway line.
SHARKS NOT MAKING IT INTO CHAMPIONS CUP IS RIDICULOUS
Okay, so the Hooker incident and the later decision by the match officials to call uncontested scrums has diverted some of the focus off the Sharks’ failure to make the top eight and in so doing qualify for next year’s Champions Cup.
Which, because of the financial implications and what it could mean to the Sharks’ chances of being part of the Club World Cup, or whatever it will be called in 2028, is to me more serious than them missing out on the URC playoffs themselves.
The Sharks see their chances of still getting through as 10 percent and there is some merit behind that old saying “While there is life there is hope”, so I will save a more exhaustive epitaph for next week’s column. When I fully expect there to be no life and no hope for the Durbanites.
Seeing the Lions are now doing so well though, this is a good time to point out the starkly contrasting approaches of the two clubs - who are separated by the 550 kilometres of the N3, and yet could be separated by however many kilometres separate the two poles of the earth in how differently they go about tackling the recruitment challenge and the process of building for success.
Let me own up to something first - I have ridiculed the Lions, both here and on other forums, in the past for their apparent unwillingness to spend money. Reluctance to spend was what I saw as the real motivation for their so-called youth policy.
I found it hard to understand their eagerness to ape what happened last decade, where they built relative success in Super Rugby (they made three successive finals) around the continuity that was created by having the same players playing under Johan Ackermann in both the Currie Cup and Super Rugby, when they kept losing players.
The Lions back then benefitted from being no name brands, meaning that their players weren’t poached by other clubs and neither were many of them, if any, selected for the Boks. But a few years back the Lions’ policy of backing their youth was being undermined by them appearing to become a satellite breeding ground for Sharks players.
The list of players who went to Durban includes Vincent and Immanuel Tshituka, Ruan Dreyer, Edwill van der Merwe, Jordan Hendrikse.
Yes, there was a bit of a counter flow in the opposite direction, with Sanele Nohambe and Marius Louw ending up at the Lions, but most of the flow was outward. As it has tended to mostly be until recently.
So here’s a question for those who might not be following my argument about the difference between the Sharks and Lions - how many marquee signings have the Lions made in the last five years, and how many marquee signings have the Sharks made in the last five years?
The answer to the first question is zero. Jannie du Plessis and Willem Alberts were veteran Boks who ended their careers in Johannesburg, but they were not marquee signings. For the Sharks, the list is a long one - Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi, Vincent Koch, Van der Merwe, Jordan Hendrikse, Andre Esterhuizen (yes initially a Shark but still a marquee signing who is often away with the Boks), the Tshituka brothers.
The Lions did struggle for several seasons and they may still not make it this season if we are talking about going deep into the URC knock-outs, which the Sharks did do last year (they made the semifinals), but where are the two teams now?
The Lions are almost certain to be in the Champions Cup for the first time next season, while the Sharks will miss out on qualifying for the second time in three seasons (they only qualified for last year by winning the Challenge Cup, not by ending in the top half of the URC).
Sorry, but given the playing resources the Sharks have contracted, that is just unacceptable. Given the names on their books, they should be SA’s big hope, not the one team to miss out on being in the elite competition.
CHELSEA AND THE SHARKS COULD BE TWINNED
Seeing Chelsea have sacked yet another coach (manager) this week, it is hard for me not to see some similarities between the London based football club and the Durban based rugby team. Both have plenty of financial clout, but both appear to suffer from the sporting acumen limitations of the people higher up in the food chain. Coaches come and go, but it is what they inherit that is the problem.
To explain that - when I attended a Sharks training session last September, the then coach John Plumtree had eight fit players training. There’s no way you can do a proper pre-season that way, and Plumtree knew it. He spoke to me about how tough it was, how little help he was getting. I assumed it was an off the record conversation, but he’s gone now so I can write it.
Plumtree was on a hiding to nothing going into the season, and there are probably some things his replacement JP Pietersen is starting to realise about the realities of coaching the Sharks.
Indeed, I’d love to be a fly on the wall if JP and one of his predecessors, Sean Everitt, have a private conversation after the Sharks play Everitt’s Edinburgh on Friday night. Everitt was one of a succession of Sharks coaches since 2013 that were victims of bad inheritance, meaning they inherited problems created by poor management elsewhere in the building.
To me it is mind blowing that the recruitment department was apparently so clearly fingered as the main stumbling block in the audit done a few months ago and yet those people are still in their positions. The Sharks put a lot of emphasis on marketing and they puff their chests out about being among the world leaders when it comes to social media.
But the people of Durban will never turn out for a ticker tape parade, like they did for Craig Jamieson and Ian Mac’s men in 1990, because their team gets anointed as The Champions of Twitter (X).