Two World Cup wins in a row. Some of the brightest coaching minds in the world orchestrated by the ‘Dark Lord’ Rassie Erasmus, with a long-term prospect of the Springboks joining the Six Nations. A pain-free transition from Super Rugby in the south to the United Rugby Championship in the north, with an immediate all-South African final between the Bulls and Stormers in 2021-22.
It all seemed to be going so swimmingly for South African rugby, but finally the juggernaut has hit a bump in the road. It is not so much a pothole as a large sinkhole. In the opening two rounds of the Investec Champions Cup, sides from the Republic have won only one of their first six games, and the negatives of South African participation are beginning to loom larger than the positives.
George Hammond with offload of the weekend for @Harlequins? 🤯
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— Investec Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) December 15, 2024
Two of the second-round routs [the Sharks’ 56-17 loss to Leicester and the Stormers’ 53-16 defeat at the Stoop] highlighted the problems of travelling to and from South Africa for one-off games. Both franchises were forced to field weaker teams, and the back-to-back format – one game in South Africa, the next in Europe seven days later – meant the Sharks were missing the beefy Bokke rump of their starting line-up: Ox Nché, Vincent Koch, Bongi Mbonambi, Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Grant Williams, André Esterhuizen, Aphelele Fassi and Makazole Mapimpi. The Stormers are battling a savage injury list and through fitness or selection were without Frans Malherbe, Steven Kitshoff, Ben-Jason Dixon, Ruben van Heerden, Evan Roos, Manie Libbok and Damian Willemse.
Before descending a slippery negative slope too quickly, let’s tip our hat to the upside of South African participation in the two premier tournaments in Europe. Stormers head coach John Dobson was surprisingly upbeat and crystal clear the future of the rugby Republic lies north of the equator.
“As South Africans, we have to be better,” he said. “We are not disrespecting [the tournament], but we need to get ourselves into a better position. I don’t know how we solve it. It’s like being invited to someone’s birthday party, then complaining about the chips. We are so grateful to be here.
“We have to be part of this tournament because it’s such a high level and it’s such a great tournament.
“And if we’re not careful, were we not to be part of the Champions Cup, and the URC morphed into an Anglo[-Celtic] League and we went back to the Currie Cup of the 1980s where we were playing Griqualand West and Free State in dusty Kimberley, that would be disastrous for South African rugby.
“This competition is probably what has helped us so much in World Cups. Every breakdown is a competition. Every scrum is a 20-second contest. Every lineout or maul is a contest.
“That has been a massive boost for South African rugby, and we’ve got to make sure we can stay here, but evenings like this evening don’t help.”
One of the most recent high-profile international retirees who is only just starting to build his media profile, Welshman Dan Biggar, observed the advantages of South African participation from the reverse angle in his column for The Daily Mail.
“I can understand entirely why everyone wants a piece of South African rugby,” he wrote. “They’re the double world champions. They’ve got so many world-class players and they bring significant television revenue into the northern hemisphere competitions. They have added hugely to the URC.”
Flip the coin: whether it lands heads or tails, the presence of South African teams in European competition is a win-win, an essential litmus test for the rugby progress made on both sides.
The problems are practical and logistical in nature. In the URC, the travel issues are resolved by mini-tours – playing multiple away fixtures in two or three-game blocks. That allows squads to be rotated and players to acclimatise fully to different time zones and an alien set of playing conditions. The Stormers supremo and the ex-Wales and Lions 10 would like to see the same practice adopted in the Champions Cup.
“If the South African teams are going to stay in the Champions Cup, I would restructure the tournament so teams travel there for two-week blocks like in the URC. We want the Champions Cup to be the best it can be and at the moment, teams aren’t being given the chance to play at their peak.” [Biggar]
“I see in January we play Leinster in the URC and then Racing [92 in Paris in the EPCR]. Is there a way to link them up on a tour? That would make it much more palatable. We could take our strongest team and play both games at full bore.” [Dobson]
An alternative option would be to play the qualifiers as four conferences based around the Premiership [four qualifiers], Top 14 [six], a European URC [four] and a South African URC [two]. The knockouts could then be played out on a two-leg basis, home and away, with breaks between each of the four play-off rounds.
A disturbing slurry draining away from the main debate is the more ancient feeling of underlying enmity between north and south. After the last round of matches, ex-England and Lions hooker Brian Moore concluded, in a Daily Telegraph piece entitled ‘Change European rugby to help South African teams? No thanks’: “the European tournaments already involved clubs from six nations before the entry of the South African teams via the URC. You must wonder how much it adds to the tournaments to include another country, particularly when this imposes extra burdens.”
The context of such comments is as much political as it is practical or logistical in origin, and they highlight just how persuasive a case South African rugby needs to mount – not only stay in Europe, but eventually, to extend its involvement at international level via the Six Nations. A team from South Africa simply must reach the pointy end of the tournament in the near future to keep Biggar’s perspective alive; before the Republic finds itself in a dangerous rugby no-man’s-land with the sky darkening overhead, and political shells exploding all around.
The most disheartening result from a South African point of view in the second round of matches was the Bulls’ loss to English champions Northampton at Loftus Versveld. Jake White fielded a strong run-on XV, but Saints still won the game while accruing a four-try bonus point in the process. The key to Saints’ success was the return of Alex Mitchell at nine, and his performance was influential enough to make you wonder what England might have achieved had he been available in November.
Mitchell’s kicking game is so long and accurate, and his instincts around the base so finely tuned, it is not at all hard to see him installed as the Lions’ first-choice scrum-half. The Saints retained three of their half-back’s five high contestable kicks, and the sheer length of his exits turned formidable in the thin air of Pretoria.
When you can ally length to the vision, and spot a 50-22 turnover kick deep inside the opposition 22, you are on to a winner at high altitude stadiums such as Loftus.
It is perhaps Mitchell’s flexibility at the base of the ruck which is his single biggest point of difference for club and country.
In both instances, ‘Mitch’ arrives square at the ruck, able to run or pass to either side, then he gives the first three defenders around the ruck ‘the eyes’ – those killer eyes. In the first clip, he initially looks back to the short side and that stops the three Bulls forwards in the area in their tracks. There is no wrap around to the far side of the ruck, and that is where the attack is really headed. In the second clip he does the opposite, looking left to drag the forwards across to the far side before passing back in the other direction.
It is Mitchell’s running threat around the fringes which ultimately has the defending forwards shuttling back and forth like puppets on the scrum-half’s string.
After taking the quick tapped penalty, Mitchell sees Bulls prop Wilco Louw still dropping back into position after the previous ruck and that makes him a ripe target for the run and offload to Juarno Augustus.
After his Sharks side suffered a 50-point defeat at the weekend, head coach John Plumtree was blunt in his assessment of the current format of European competition: “We are all competitive. But the reality is we have got to look after these athletes. They are not robots.” It is probably the first big setback South Africa has experienced as a rugby nation since Erasmus took over as national coach in 2018, and it has occurred at club/provincial level.
There is one query about how the travel needs to and from South Africa can be accommodated in an improved format; there is another, much bigger question mark around whether some of the more conservative ‘diehards’ really want a South African presence in Europe at all. There is a logistical problem and a political axe to grind, and the Republic needs to be careful it does not fall between the stools in two hemispheres, leaving it nowhere to go.
In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
I dunno. I always thought that rugby was a winter game. I must have played in the wrong season all ny life then.
I think this debate is avoiding the elephant in the room. Money. According to the URC chief executive Martin Anayi, the inclusion of SA teams has doubled the income of the URC. There is no doubt that the SA teams benefit from the URC but so do the other countries' teams. Perhaps it doesn't affect a club like Leinster but the less well off clubs benefit hugely from South African games' TV income. I don't think SA continued inclusion in the URC is a slam dunk. They don't hold all the cards by a long way - but they do have an ace in the hole. The Ace of Diamonds.
Do you know how it's shared? Split over each URC team? Well said. The new club owners could spice things up right?
I’d say SA continuation is pretty much a slam dunk. They have brought much to the table in the URC with revenue growth, fan engagement and player enjoyment - yes, this is a factor too! On top of that there is still much headroom for further growth, both in the URC and especially with EPCR. The only resistance to SA teams comes from the English at present, mainly because they can’t win the CC any longer and their clubs are in real financial shit, but their recent overtures were firmly rejected.
I can only see great things on the horizon for SA inclusion in the URC and EPCR, if the right format adjustments are made. But if they are, then further success will follow and there is a strong likelihood that 6N becomes 7N as well.