Six Nations lineups indicative of the strength of URC

A glance through the match day squads that lined up for the first round of the Guinness Six Nations last weekend gives an indication of the strength of some of the teams and quality on show in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

Vodacom Bulls coach Jake White recently suggested that the Heineken Champions Cup was close to the level of international rugby, and he’s right about that. It is particularly so when you look at the top teams in the elite European competition. But the same can be said of the sharp end of the URC too.

Leinster, Benetton and Glasgow Warriors make up the top three in the cross hemisphere franchise/regional competition, and those three teams also just happen to supply the chore of their respective international teams competing in the Six Nations.

LEINSTER DOMINATION OF IRELAND CONTINUES

Leinster’s domination of the Irish team that went into this Six Nations as reigning champions is of course well known. The Ireland coaches have selected around a Leinster spine for years, and even in this period when Ireland are getting used to life without the former Leinster kingpin Johnny Sexton, it is still the Dublin based team that dominates.

There were 10 Leinster players in the Ireland team that started in the big win over France in Marseille that reverberated around the rugby world last Friday. And another six on the bench. Taking their representation tally up to 16 players in the match day 23. No wonder people say that the Leinster coaches also have an impact on the good work done by coach Andy Farrell and his team at international level.

It is possible though that having so many players playing for Ireland in this period when many of the rank and file players are taking it relatively easier in the break that has been forced in the URC season. How else can you explain Leinster’s inability to nail down a trophy in the sharp end of both the previous two URC and Champions Cup competitions where they dominated the league phase for most of the way?

Leinster coach Leo Cullen has in both seasons managed his players by selecting alternative teams when they are scheduled close to Champions Cup games, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the emotion and physical output that was required for Ireland to win the Grand Slam last year didn’t contribute to his team’s failure to get over the line when it mattered.

FRANCO HAS CONTRIBUTED TO BOTH ITALY AND SCOTLAND

The Glasgow Warriors representation in the Scotland team that broke a 22 year losing drought in Cardiff last weekend is almost as strong as the Leinster one in the Ireland team. There were nine Glasgow players in the team when it dominated the first half at the Principality Stadium, and there were two more on the bench.

Coincidentally, the man responsible for Glasgow’s rise back to being one of the top URC competitors after they were smashed by Leinster in a quarterfinal two seasons ago is also possibly responsible for the rise of Italy as a growing force.

Italy performed poorly against the two big teams they faced at the recent World Cup in France, but the dramatic improvement in the performances of their age-group teams suggest better days ahead. Italy lost their opener to England, but the three point losing margin was the closest they have come to beating England in the Six Nations in their history.

It’s not impossible to relate that improvement to the improvement shown by Benetton in the URC. The Treviso based team is second on the log at the halfway stage of the competition, just two behind leaders Leinster and one ahead of Glasgow. Smith was of course involved with both Benetton and Italy before he linked up with the Scottish team and he is credited with putting the structures in place that are now starting to bear fruit for both the club and Italy.

Of the starting team against England, no less than nine of the players were from Benetton, with two from the other Italian URC team, Parma Zebre, and the other four being overseas based. There were an additional five Benetton players on the bench in Rome, bringing their overall representation to 14 players in the overall match day squad. There was one more Zebre player on the bench, so Italy included 15 local URC players in all.

WHY IT IS GOOD FOR SOUTH AFRICA

That kind of domination of the squads gives credibility to the coaches who claim when they play some of the top teams in the URC that they are playing against international class opposition. The URC is becoming more of an international competition, and while Wales’ representation is fairly evenly spread now that the Ospreys, who for a while dominated the Wales team, are going into a rebuilding phase, three of the four international teams playing in the Six Nations who are aligned to the URC are dominated by their better performing teams in that competition.

It is different with the South African teams, with the DHL Stormers and Vodacom Bulls the most consistent local performers in the competition in the first two seasons, because of the relaxation of the regulations pertaining to overseas based players. The Bok team is assembled from far and wide.

However, the fact that the local teams, with combinations that aren’t quite the quasi international combinations you see in the some of the other top URC sides, come up against sides that are packed with so much international experience can only be good for South African rugby and by extension the future prospects of the Springboks. It means there is a deep depth of players who know what it is like to play against teams that are of international strength.

SCOTS AND ITALIANS FACE BIG OBSTACLES THIS WEEKEND

It will be interesting this weekend to see if Scotland can build on the progress they showed against Wales last week when they host a smarting French team at Murrayfield. It goes without saying that Gregor Townsend need to focus on sustaining what gave them a 20-0 lead at halftime and a 27-0 advantage shortly after that, and eradicate the errors that saw Wales come back so strongly at them with 26 unanswered points.

Wales will have a hard task picking up the pieces when they go to London to play England, but they’ve won at Twickenham in the not too distant past, and there are still some questions about England’s so-called renaissance, particularly after their poor first half in Rome. Italy, with it’s strong Benetton connection, have the formidable task of facing down Ireland (quasi-Leinster) at the AVIVA Stadium in the only match that will be played on Sunday.

THIS WEEK’S GUINNESS SIX NATIONS FIXTURES:

Scotland v France (Edinburgh, Saturday 16.15)

England v Wales (London, Saturday 18.48)

Ireland v Italy (Dublin, Sunday 17.00)