The champions won’t be in action as the DHL Stormers enjoy a bye in the first weekend, but while they rest up there will be several teams going out with almost angry intent to wrest the Vodacom United Rugby Championship trophy away from Cape Town.
The Vodacom Bulls of course head the list of teams that will be wanting to use the early part of this new season to dispatch the memories of how the last one ended for them. The Bulls will feel they did just about everything right in coming back from near the foot of the log to make the final, but the failure to win the decider at DHL Stadium meant it all ended in abject disappointment.
With Bulls director of rugby Jake White electing for his team not to play any pre-season preparation games, the kick-off to Saturday’s opening game against the Emirates Lions in Johannesburg will be the end of three months of hurt. There may be some rust, but it could translate into a tough afternoon for the Lions, who bowed out of the competition earlier in the 2021/2022 season but feel they have done the pre-season planning necessary to be a lot more competitive this year.
LEINSTER SHRUGGED OFF DISAPPOINTMENT BY BEATING ALL BLACKS
But it is not just the Bulls who will have been spending the past three months hurting. Of course, several of the Leinster players were able to shrug off the bitter disappointment of their shock semifinal exit at the hands of the Bulls at the RDS Arena by being part of Ireland’s series win over the All Blacks. That underlined just how good they really are.
Yet now that they are pulling on their club colours again, the memory should come flooding back. Not just of that loss to the Bulls, but of a season that was excellent in all respects except that they didn’t get their hands on any trophies. Their exit from the URC, a competition they had dominated for so long in it’s previous guise as the PRO14, was preceded by a week by a last gasp defeat to La Rochelle in the Champions Cup final.
Leo Cullen’s men should have a relatively easy start to their campaign as they go to Parma on Saturday to face Zebre. They have yet to lose to Zebre and the teams have played each other 16 times so it is unlikely much is going to change, particularly as Leinster will be smarting from the disappointing end to last season.
ULSTER HAVE REASON TO BE ANGRY
Then there is the case for anger and passionate renewed intent from Leinster’s Irish rivals, Ulster. They had an even more agonisingly frustrating end to their last campaign than Leinster and the Bulls did, with Manie Libbok’s conversion from the touchline beating them in a semifinal in Cape Town that they looked to have won. Remember too that Ulster felt they were robbed by the refereeing team on their league trip to Cape Town a few months earlier.
Ulster have a tougher start to the season than Leinster, as they host Connacht at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast on Saturday night in one of the plum games of the opening round.
Much of the early focus though will be on the teams that have new coaches and who are therefore ostensibly starting out on a new path. South African Franco Smith has vacated his coaching job at Italy to take up the reins at Glasgow Warriors, who sacked Danny Wilson following the Warriors’ 76-14 annihilation at the hands of Leinster in last year’s quarterfinal.
The Warriors were already working at developing their offload game so it will be interesting to see how much that might get intensified now that the attack minded Smith, who has also coached the Cheetahs to Currie Cup success, is in charge.
DIFFICULT BAPTISM FOR FRANCO
Smith has a potentially difficult baptism ahead of him, with his team starting the competition away to his old team Benetton in Treviso on Friday night. Benetton were a difficult team to play against on their home ground last year, particularly early in the competition, and the Italians have lost just one of their last seven home matches against Scottish opponents, that being a 19-38 reverse to the Warriors in 2020.
The other team with a new coach is Munster, who have Graham Rowntree replacing Johann van Graan, who has moved to English club Bath. Munster start off with a trip to Cardiff, where the hosts will be motivated to try and start the momentum of a much needed Welsh renaissance at club level.
No Welsh team made the play-offs last year and it compounded a long period of depression for Welsh rugby that wasn’t helped by the international team’s defeat to Italy in the final game of the 2022 Six Nations season. There has reportedly been a lot of soul searching and resetting in the Welsh game during the off-season and it will be interesting to see if Cardiff can make an impression against one of the traditionally strong teams in the competition.
LIONS MUCH BETTER PREPARED
But all eyes locally will firmly be focused on emirates Airlines Park. The Lions have lost some players in the off-season and gained some. They lost to the Cell C Sharks, who join the Stormers in having a bye in the opening week, in a high scoring game where there was clearly no defence (45-43), but their coach Ivan ‘Cash’ van Rooyen reckons the preparation this year has been a lot better than last year.
The 2021/2022 season was indeed stop/start for everyone because of Covid, and we can expect a better start from the South African sides this time in comparison. The Bulls, despite their achievements of the past two years, still don’t have that many current Springboks, and that weighs in their favour in comparison to the Sharks and to a lesser extent the Stormers.
Like themselves though, the Sharks are building depth and will be looking to make a winning start when they join the fray with an overseas tour that starts next week. The Stormers were magnificent and exceeded all expectation last season but the addition of the Champions Cup games to their schedule could test their depth more than was the case last year.
Derby games can be unpredictable and no-one will know that better than the well traveled and experienced Bulls coach. And they can be even more unpredictable in the early season. So don’t bet against an upset in Johannesburg, though it is hard to foresee it given how focused and ready the Bulls should be to make up for last year’s disappointment.
There was a lot of talk of the Bulls winning both the URC and the Currie Cup last year. In the end they ended up with nothing. The impact of that disappointment should be a warning to the other contenders.?
WEEKEND VODACOM UNITED RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP FIXTURES
Benetton v Glasgow Warriors (Treviso, Friday 18.30)
Prediction: Benetton by 5
Zebre v Leinster (Parma, Saturday 14.00)
Prediction: Leinster by 30
Cardiff Rugby v Munster (Cardiff, Saturday 16.05)
Prediction: Munster by 8
Emirates Lions v Vodacom Bulls (Johannesburg, Saturday 16.05)
Prediction: Bulls by 8
Scarlets v Ospreys (Llanelli, Saturday 18.15)
Prediction: Scarlets by 5
Edinburgh v Dragons (Edinburgh, Saturday 20.35)
Prediction: Edinburgh by 12
Ulster v Connacht (Belfast, Saturday 20.35)
Prediction: Ulster by 12