The situation the DHL Stormers and the Vodacom Bulls find themselves in this week, with a Carling Currie Cup game between the two arch-rivals preluding an important Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash is weird but it is not unique.
The Stormers play the Bulls in their URC quarterfinal in Cape Town on the afternoon of 6 May, while a week before that, this coming Saturday, Western Province host the Bulls in the domestic competition.
It happened last year, with WP, then coached by Jerome Paarwater, facing off against the Bulls, coached by Gert Smal, in their first Currie Cup game of the season. The Bulls just happened to be playing the Stormers in a URC clash at Loftus a few days later.
There was some surprise when the Bulls, who of course although coached by Smal had Jake White as the ultimate boss in his role as director of rugby, selected some of their URC players for the game.
And sure enough, the loaded Bulls team won comprehensively, and it was noticeable when the final whistle blew that the visitors left the DHL Stadium field with something of a swagger in their step. The Bulls were lording it over WP and the Stormers back then, and that result precipitated some social media jibes from the Bulls’ PR department that were perceived in the Cape as arrogance.
And sure enough they were referenced when the Stormers broke a long drought at Loftus by scoring a well deserved victory a few days later. The Stormers dominated the first half, the Bulls came back in the second, and then a power glitch prevented all but those at Loftus from seeing the Stormers come back to score the winner near the end.
SO LAKER HAS A POINT
When you reference that game, the Stormers and WP defence coach Norman Laker had a point when he went in front of a press conference at the start of the build-up week to what is effectively two consecutive north/south derbies at DHL Stadium in the space of a week.
“This is a game all on its own, we are playing for the Currie Cup, and we want to improve, that’s the objective for us, we want to win so we can get into position to contest a semifinal,” said Laker.
Yes, Laker is right. Once the URC is done, the focus will switch fully onto the Currie Cup. And in the closing weeks of the domestic season, what happens on Saturday will have relevance to how things play out then and the permutations that the teams will confront ahead of the knock-outs. Next week’s URC quarterfinal, regardless of the result, will by then have no relevance.
But there is one difference this week to the scenario that unfolded in January last year. Back then the respective URC and Currie Cup teams at least had different coaches sitting in the dug-out. Indeed, even earlier this season, when a Currie Cup strength WP side went to Loftus and beat a URC strength Bulls team in the domestic competition it was different - Edgar Marutlulle was the Bulls coach.
THIS WEEK IT'S MORE REAL
To White’s credit, he chose to front the media after that defeat and take responsibility himself. Making it appear that his rival from the Cape, John Dobson, had got one over him. This weekend though it is more real - it is White against Dobson, Laker will be part of the assistant coaching group just like he will be next week. And both sets of coaches make no secret of the fact they have one overall squad and are working towards creating a synergy of playing templates between URC and Currie Cup teams.
So while different players will be involved the following week, certainly on the Stormers side, for Dobson has already made it clear he won’t load his team and wants to give his well travelled first choice players a much needed break, the argument that there is no relevance isn’t exactly as clear as mud.
It may in the end depend on what happens on Saturday. The Stormers/WP have built up an impressive sequence of wins over the Bulls, and at times it has appeared the Bulls might have become a bit obsessed with the need to get the better of their Cape rivals in order to break what is now developing into a drought that is leaning in the opposite direction to what it was last January.
LESS RELEVANT IF BULLS DON’T LOAD THEIR TEAM
If White doesn’t load his team, and he’s perhaps learned his lesson from those occasions he did do it, the result will be less relevant. There again, to confuse the issue, if he does load his team and wins what does that really mean? It didn’t mean anything last January.
But given the fact that Dobson’s wider squad have tasted a lot of success against the Bulls recently, and sometimes in situations when they appeared really up against it, going to Loftus with under-strength teams, there could be a slight mental impact on both groups.
For the Stormers, a WP win will surely reaffirm their self-belief that they do know how to best the Bulls. And conversely, it will leave the Bulls feeling they’ve still got a frontier to cross when they go into the following week’s much bigger clash at the same venue.
A Bulls win at the weekend might just provide some small boost to the Bulls URC side, who know they are going to a venue where no other South African side has won since the Emirates Lions were victorious there in December 2021, and which hasn’t lost anywhere to a South African team since then.
WP AND STORMERS IS NOT YET COMPARING APPLES WITH APPLES
Note though the use of the words “slight” and “small” when describing potential impact of Saturday’s game on the bigger one the following week. For when you look at the records of the Stormers and WP teams, even though there is a search for synergy it is still not comparing apples with apples.
And then you do have to side with Laker - the WP team is a work in progress, they are improving on last year’s disaster but are currently outside the top four in the Currie Cup, whereas the Stormers have proved last season was no fluke by following up the inaugural URC title by finishing third. And retaining their South African Shield.
The mental strength of the Stormers that has come from winning big games doesn’t appear to have yet become a feature of the Province team simply because they have yet to set up the winning habit the Stormers did over a period of time. The Stormers have that, they’ve won a URC trophy, and it is what makes them so difficult to beat. That mental strength shouldn’t be dented if what is essentially the second-string team loses.
In the end, provided there is no cross-over between the respective teams the coaches are preparing for the two different games, they might have as much relevance to each other as the old provincial B team clashes that used to be played as curtain-raisers to the main event on Currie Cup match days. In other words, none. Just don't do what I've just done and think too much about it. Then it's not as clear as mud...