CHAMPS CUP PREVIEW: Jake's men can make some noise

The start of the third season of South Africa’s participation in the Investec Champions Cup is upon us and it is the Vodacom Bulls who can start it off by delivering the statement performance that can make some noise advancing the case of the local teams.

If you factor in the four Round of 16 matches that have been played in this country in the first two seasons, there have been 14 Champions Cup games in South Africa - 10 pool games and four knock-out games. Of those, the local sides have won 13, and there has yet to be a defeat for a SA side in the Pool stage of competition.

The only loss was when the DHL Stormers went toe to toe with mighty La Rochelle in Cape Town in their round of 16 clash last year, where they actually dominated the game until the halfway mark, and then succumbed to a strong fightback in a game played in a treacherous wind.

The wind was with John Dobson’s men in the first half, against them in the second. Manie Libbok missed the last gasp conversion that would have won them the game. They lost by a solitary point. It was an emotional exit from the premier European Cup competition for the Stormers but it was no disgrace. La Rochelle were the two time reigning champions at the time.

The Stormers had in fact beaten La Rochelle in early December in a Pool game. That was a win that should have been regarded as seismic and should have registered as a major event overseas. It didn’t. Well, at least not in the British media, where the reception to SA participation in the Champions Cup remains lukewarm and can be summed up by - “Where on the map of the world is South Africa, I don’t see it in Europe?”

Instead of the Stormers making waves with that big home win, the most noise around the SA participation actually came at the quarterfinal stage, when the Bulls director of rugby Jake White sent an under-strength squad to the home of Northampton Saints. There was much vitriol directed at the Bulls and White for disrespecting the competition, never mind that many of the overseas teams, when confronted with a logistic challenge, had been known to go understrength in away games.

White’s reasons were perfectly valid ones - he had some testing big Vodacom United Rugby Championship games scheduled around that time on the other side of the world, and he needed to box clever. Which competition was the one his team were most likely to win? Given that the SA teams could not host a semi-final in the Champions Cup, but in the URC they could - in fact no URC final has ever been played outside SA, it was a no-brainer.

BETTER CHANCE OF WINNING AN AWAY SEMI NOW

The reason no semi-final could be played in SA was because SA Rugby had yet to become full partners in the Champions Cup. Fortunately, that changes from next year, when the buying-in process will have been completed.

But while this year will again see the local sides travel for a semi-final should they get that far, which they haven’t up to now, there’s reason to believe that the travel hurdle doesn’t need to be as significant now as it has been. The years of URC participation have made the local sides more accustomed to playing and winning big games in the northern hemisphere.

The Bulls have in the past little while won three away games in the URC, while the Hollywoodbets Sharks have enough World Cup winning Springboks to be able to win anywhere when at full strength.
The Stormers have a reputation for being bad travellers but their second-string team nearly beat Leicester Tigers in the pool phase of this competition last year, they did beat Stade Francais in Paris, Connacht in Galway in the URC, and beat Northampton Saints, the eventual English champions, in a friendly at Franklin Gardens.

There is context to the recent Stormers failures, and you wouldn’t write them off at full strength. What is needed though is a few good wins over big teams in the Pool phase, and as Saracens are a team that the overseas media tend to make a fuss about, Saturday night’s game is an opportunity.

The Bulls did beat Saracens quite comfortably last year, but that was at Loftus, where it is acknowledged that the altitude gives them an advantage (less so at night, when that game was played, but anyway).

SARACENS GAME AN OPPORTUNITY

A good Bulls win over Saracens, who are just a few points behind leaders Bath in the English Premiership, will inspire the Bulls to think they can go back to the north and win a semi-final. That will incentivise them to play to make a semi-final, something they arguably didn’t do last year.

The first objective for all South African teams must be to secure a home quarterfinal, something that hasn’t happened before now.

In the Sharks’ first foray in the competition, in 2022/2023, they made the quarterfinal round but had to happen to the home of the most successful team in Champions Cup history. They lost a game that was closer than the one-sided margin might have suggested. 

The Stormers were well beaten at Sandy Park by Exeter Chiefs later that same day, and we have already mentioned that the Bulls, the only SA team in the quarters last season, went to Franklin Gardens under-strength.

The teams for Saturday’s games have yet to be announced, but it appears White is making the Bulls’ visit to Saracens personal, so we can expect a strong team. That will give them a great chance of winning.

While the Bulls do miss the injured Bok lock Ruan Nortje when he is not there, as well as Kurt-Lee Arendse, who is in Japan, they have enough class, particularly in the forward pack, to make it an uncomfortable 80 minutes for Saracens.

SHARKS SHOULD BEAT EXETER

It should also be an uncomfortable 80 minutes for Exeter Chiefs, who are in Durban on Saturday to face Siya Kolisi’s (or Eben Etzebeth’s) Sharks.

The Durbanites might feel they received a bit of a wake-up call from the Stormers last weekend, even though they eventually hung on to win, and they are also the SA franchise who appears most likely to target the Champions Cup.

They do have the personnel to go all the way to the trophy and will see this home game as a big first step. The team will be announced later on Friday, and it will be interesting to see if coach John Plumtree considers Etzebeth ready to go.

Bongi Mbonambi should be back, and that should add substance to the pack.

The Chiefs are languishing in last position in the Premiership with seven defeats in seven starts, but they lost a close away game to log leaders Bath at the Rec last week and the Sharks are rightly not underestimating them.

MUCH INTEREST IN GQEBERHA GAME

The Stormers, who start out at Gqeberha’s Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium as their home venue, will definitely not be underestimating Toulon, who have a big standing in South African eyes because of the many legendary Boks who have played for the French club.

Toulon weren’t in the Champions Cup in the first season of SA participation and had to make it into last season’s edition by doing what the Sharks did more recently - winning the EPCR Challenge Cup.

The Stormers are eagerly awaiting the return of a phalanx of injured players but showed in Durban last week that they aren’t far away from cracking it.

If their forwards can repeat what they did at Hollywoodbets Kings Park and their backs can find the clinical edge they have been lacking but seemed to find when they went coast to coast for the disallowed would-be winning try off the last move of the game, they should win. 

It is a home game after all, although we also need to know more about how full-strength Toulon will be for this game to be sure.

LIONS AND CHEETAHS START CHALLENGE ON SUNDAY

Meanwhile the Emirates Lions and the Toyota Cheetahs will again be flying the SA flag in the lesser EPCR Challenge Cup and will be starting out their campaigns on Sunday.

For the Lions watching the Sharks make it into the Champions Cup by winning the Challenge Cup should be motivation, although that theory is undermined by the fact that the Lions look likely to take on the Ospreys with an under-strength team as they’ve sent most of their frontline players home after the URC defeat to Munster in Limerick last week.

First round Investec Champions Cup group fixtures

Bath v La Rochelle (Friday 22.00)

Hollywoodbets Sharks v Exeter Chiefs (Saturday 15.00)

Clermont-Auvergne v Benetton (Saturday 15.00)

DHL Stormers v Toulon (Saturday 17.15)

Northampton Saints v Castres Olympique (Saturday 17.15)

Munster v Stade Francais (Saturday 19.30)

Saracens v Vodacom Bulls (Saturday 19.30)

Glasgow Warriors v Sale Sharks (Saturday 22.00)

Racing 92 v Harlequins (Saturday 22.00)

Bordeaux Begles v Leicester Tigers (Sunday 15.00)

Toulouse v Ulster (Sunday 17.15)

Bristol Bears v Leinster (Sunday 19.30)

EPCR Challenge Cup fixtures

Dragons v Montpellier (Friday 22.00)

Gloucester v Edinburgh (Friday 22.00)

Black Lion v Vannes (Saturday 15.00)

Bayonne v Scarlets (Saturday 15.00)

Lyon v Cardiff (Saturday 17.15)

Connacht v Zebre (Saturday 22.00)

Toyota Cheetahs v Perpignan (Sunday 15.00)

Pau v Newcastle Falcons (Sunday 15.00)

Ospreys v Emirates Lions (Sunday 17.15)