Why predicting URC playoff on tour history can be folly

When the DHL Stormers were last at the Scotstoun Stadium they lost by 11 while the Vodacom Bulls thrashed Benetton just a few weeks ago.

So with the Italian team going back to Loftus and the Stormers going to Glasgow for their Vodacom United Rugby Championship quarterfinals, it should be easy to predict the winners. Right?

Actually, it isn’t.

When it comes to playoff time you always hear rugby coaches and players talking about how different it is to league play. And it is for good reason.

It also goes beyond just the fact that there is extra pressure in a playoff because of the knockout nature of the game.

There’s also the aspect of a league game being part of a well planned campaign, in the sense that it has to fit in the planning into what comes before the clash between the two sides and what comes after it.

These were the results when the #VURC quarter-finalists last met 👀 pic.twitter.com/hSKYYmOIKG

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) June 4, 2024

Make no mistake, the Bulls should start as overwhelming favourites to beat Benetton, who they eclipsed 56-35 just three weeks ago (18 May).

But their coach Jake White will be sure to tell his charges in the buildup to see that game in context - Benetton were on a two match tour.

Given that their first opponents, the Hollywoodbets Sharks, were prioritising the EPCR Challenge Cup, plus the game was at the coast and not at altitude, it would have been remiss of Benetton not to target that as their must win in South Africa, the one they would put everything into.

They got it right, winning in the dying minutes at Hollywoodbets Kings Park. Mission accomplished.

Playing the Bulls in the afternoon was always going to be tough, and having won in Durban to keep their playoff hopes very much alive, there would have been a release of pressure for the Pretoria game.

They knew they would get another chance of clinching their playoff and Investec Champions Cup place as they were hosting Edinburgh in Treviso in the final round.

A bonus point would be a big help, and by engaging in a loose game with the Bulls, where the hosts ran away with it early and then loosened up a bit to make it one of those “you score one and we will score one” games, they were able to leave Loftus with a try scoring bonus point. Not a victory, but it was a mission accomplished. Voila!

DIFFERENT MISSION FOR BENETTON THIS TIME

Benetton are heading to Pretoria this time on a very different mission. This is not one game in a two match tour, but the all or nothing game they’ve dreamed of being part of in the URC ever since Italian rugby started the upward curve that has been followed by both their premier club team and the national side.

There are no bonus points, there is no tomorrow to preserve themselves for if they lose.

That makes them a different proposition to what they were last month. White will know that, and he will tell his players that just in case they doubt it.

The Stormers are in a very different position now too from when they went to Glasgow in early November.

Back then, it was the start of a four match tour. They’d picked up full points from their opening two games on South African soil (against the Emirates Lions away and the Scarlets in Stellenbosch) and were top of the URC log.

They would have wanted to beat Glasgow, of course they would, but it wasn’t the imperative it is now.

The Scotstoun game was the start of a four-match tour, and it may be instructive to take cognisance of which games on that trip coach John Dobson references when he speaks about how that tour put his men on the back foot.

It was the two games against supposedly lesser opposition that they lost, meaning Cardiff in the final game and Benetton before that, and not the ones against the more difficult opponents, Glasgow and Munster, that got Dobson’s goat.

IT WASN'T ALL OR NOTHING IN NOVEMBER

When they arrived in Glasgow it wasn’t all or nothing like it is now. It was the start of a four match tour.

Players had to be managed. Those with niggles had to be protected for what was to come.

And it wasn’t just the Springboks that the Stormers were missing at that point, two other significant absentees that immediately spring to mind were stalwart centre Dan du Plessis and game-breaking No 8 Hacjivah Dayimani. Neither player toured.

The Stormers will be hoping this game is the first in a three match tour, one that they hope will see them go from Glasgow to Munster and then to Dublin or, if the Bulls beat Leinster in the semifinal, from Munster to Pretoria (if the Ospreys beat Munster on Friday they could still have a Cape Town semi but they won’t be thinking about that).

But they can’t treat it as such, can’t take with them the usual tour mentality of maybe resting players now for what is to come. For nothing will follow Saturday if Saturday does not end with the Stormers having a ‘W’ in the result box.

“In nature it does feel very different to a tour game, playing in a playoff is the franchise or rugby union equivalent of playing a test match,” said Dobson when asked how different this one was to when his men visited Glasgow in November.

“It is a first time for us. We have hosted every URC playoff game we could. We have told the guys to pack for a few weeks. But it is all about this Saturday. To be honest, it is hard to really answer the question, this is very novel for us, very new.”

Which is why Dobson is happy to embrace this challenge as part of his team’s growth project. You do get the feeling that while Dobson is desperate to regain the trophy his team won in the competition’s inaugural season, he’s happy that his team showed their pedigree during the season in recovering from their disastrous four loss tour. What happens after this might be a bonus.

“It felt like we had the knife to our throat for the bulk of the season, ever since that tour, and the fact that we punched through that like we did to finish fifth, after being 13th at the end of that tour, is good. We didn’t climb as high as we wanted, and the Ospreys game was devastating. Now we get a chance to play an away playoff. To really become what we want to become, we have to win these games on the road.

“That is why I keep talking about these games as a growth opportunity. It is very different though, as unlike in previous seasons when we hosted playoff games, this feels like an opportunity for us rather than a threat. Ever since we lost to the Ospreys and knew we’d probably be travelling away we have been looking forward to this trip.”

TRAVELLING TEAMS IN SIMILAR POSITIONS


In summary, the Stormers and Benetton are in similar positions in that they are going to venues where they lost on their last visit but with very different mindsets this time.

For both, the big disadvantage is that they have to cross the equator in the days before the game.

It might be a bigger disadvantage from a logistical viewpoint for the Stormers given the indirect route they have to take, and they flew out in dribs and drabs, with the first group flying out of Cape Town on Monday, and the last due to leave on Wednesday night.

That’s not great preparation for an elite quarterfinal and no-one should have forgotten what White had to say when his Bulls side faced a similar challenge before their Champions Cup quarter against Northampton Saints.

In short, he wasn’t happy, and rightly not.

But Benetton have a disadvantage too - they are playing at altitude, something they are not used to. Will their recent visit to Loftus help them in that regard?

Who knows, but the number of questions that hang in the air are what make playoff games interesting.

The #VURC quarter-final line-up this weekend 🍿 pic.twitter.com/bh1NAN7x35

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) June 3, 2024