The smart money should probably be on Leinster regaining the hegemony they enjoyed in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in its previous guise as the PRO14, but no-one could argue that the DHL Stormers are not making a great fist of their attempt to defend their title.
The Stormers were the big winners locally from the clutch of derbies that introduced South Africans to festive season rugby for the first time, with their coastal rivals the Cell C Sharks joining them in sending out the message that these two teams, and not the Stormers and the Bulls, will be the sides pushing for the South African Shield during the second half of the URC season.
The Sharks comfortably dealt with both the Emirates Lions two days before Christmas and then the Bulls on New Year’s Eve, and the Stormers delivered almost identical winning margins in their two games played in the reverse order. Their excellent win over the Lions on the last day of the year ensured they completed a memorable 2022 unbeaten at home, the first time that has happened for them, and it is also now 13 months since they lost to a fellow South African team.
With the Stormers and Sharks picking up full points from both games, the Stormers are now definitely in the pound seats in the South African conference, with a lead of 10 points on the second placed Bulls, on whom they also have a game in hand. It is going to be hard for the Bulls to catch the Stormers from their current position, and it makes their director of rugby Jake White’s decision to throw everything at the pre-Christmas north/south derby understandable.
SHARKS BETTER PLACED THAN BULLS
The Bulls do get a chance to get their own back on the Stormers in mid-February when they host them at Loftus, but by then the Stormers could be over the hill and far away when it comes to the conference. The Sharks are better placed to catch the Stormers. They are 15 points adrift at present, but they do have a game in hand on the Stormers and two on the Bulls. The five point gap the Bulls have on them needs to be seen in the contest of the games in hand.
The Sharks do look like they are gaining momentum. They get two opportunities to dent the Stormers’ position when they play their Cape rivals in home and away derbies in February and March.
Both those games are going to be understrength though as they will be played during the Springbok resting window, something that probably suits the Stormers more than it does the Sharks, who showed against the Bulls just how formidable they are when they have their top Springboks, ironically most of them acquired from the Stormers, available to play.
ULSTER’S DEFEAT HELPED CAPE TEAM
It is not just about the Shield though, when it comes to the passage through the playoffs, and the Stormers’ chances of getting a full home run through the knock-outs like they did last season, the overall log is also of critical importance. And here the Stormers are styling too, with Munster’s slightly unexpected derby win away against Ulster that ended the New Year weekend increasing the Stormers’ gap in second from the third placed team.
After the same number of games, the Stormers lead Ulster by eight points, the same number of points they trail the table topping Leinster by. However, there’s an important caveat when it comes to the gap between first and second - the Stormers have a game in hand on Leinster.
The Stormers do have trips to Leinster and Ulster in their future, and in their current form Munster might be a challenge to them in Cape Town. So their coach John Dobson knows his team still has it all to do. However, a win over Glasgow Warriors away on Sunday could just be enough to enable him to breathe a whole lot easier as Champions Cup qualification and play-off qualification would then be pretty much assured.
That’s how good the Stormers have been this season, they’ve almost achieved their initial goal from last season already and the competition is only half completed. What Dobson will be hoping for is that he has no more injuries, with the sight of Marvin Orie disappearing down the tunnel being a reminder that there is one area, lock, where the Cape team are struggling with depth at the moment. And with Orie set to be one of the Boks rested in February and March, there is a hole that needs filling there, although Gary Porter’s return to fitness will be a help.
THE TRAVEL REQUIRES LOOKING AT
For the Bulls the festive season games were a nightmare start to what White referred to his team’s month of hell, a month where he reckons that because of all the traveling his men are going to have to do, there will be only nine days of training. The travel challenge, with the South African teams travelling through Doha every time they head north, is one thing that Dobson and White are in agreement on, with Dobson saying that it is something the URC are going to have to look at.
And he’s right - when South Africa signed up for the URC it was on the assumption that it would mean an overnight flight for overseas games, not the long hauls they are currently having to undertake which aren’t dissimilar to what they did in the Super Rugby era. And now they are doing it a lot more, for they travel overseas sometimes twice a month.
The Sharks will feel after their resounding win over the Bulls that they’ve now fully recovered from their bump that saw their previous coach make his exit, but it is when they are understrength that the coaches will be properly tested. Particularly when they play the Stormers, who no-one would deny are in excellent hands in the form of Dobson and his assistants.
Weekend Vodacom United Rugby Championship results
Edinburgh 25 Glasgow Warriors 32
Zebre 17 Benetton 40
Cell C Sharks 47 Vodacom Bulls 20
DHL Stormers 40 Emirates Lions 8
Cardiff Rugby 19 Ospreys 22
Scarlets 33 Dragons 17
Ulster 14 Munster 15
Leinster 41 Connacht 12