Outside the Lions’ shock win over Leinster, the weekend was a poor one for the local teams but it did reaffirm the decision to switch to the northern hemisphere and the United Rugby Championship (URC) was the right one. And not just for SA.
Yes, it has turned out that there are major logistical problems to be overcome. Travel and touring was easier during the Super Rugby era, even though overcoming the disadvantages posed by travel was one of the reasons for the switch to the easier time zones.
But there are advantages that were well summed up by victorious Ospreys coach Toby Flood after his team’s shock win over the Stormers. Flood spoke about the barriers his team have gone through recently — the Cape Town win was their second in SA this year, and their previous one was against the Lions at altitude in the Challenge Cup.
He spoke about how much it meant to his team to go through the altitude frontier in January and now the landmark achievement of winning at a venue where the Stormers don’t often lose. It would have seemed ridiculous a year ago, but those experiences have imbued him and his team with the confidence that they can go to another altitude venue, Loftus, and win this coming weekend.
It works the other way around too. The Sharks didn’t beat Glasgow Warriors in their round 14 game, but John Plumtree chose a second-string team that produced a highly competitive performance and spread the net of Sharks players who now have experience of playing on a 5G surface against top opposition in northern hemisphere conditions.
“You guys actually have it both ways, and are very clever,” said Flood, “because your players are getting to experience northern hemisphere rugby at club level, but are still getting regular competition against the southern hemisphere nations at international level.”
Indeed. That, of course, does pose problems because it feels like there is no proper off-season in SA, but we get Flood’s point, and he’s right.
And while I understand and agree with many of Bulls director of rugby Jake White’s misgivings related to the challenges of playing across two competitions (actually three if you count the Currie Cup) and the travel etc, the wide exposure to playing across hemispheres for a deep pool of SA players gives this country an advantage.
It also gives the nations represented in the URC an advantage. The Ospreys aren’t the only team evolving because of their exposure to SA opposition and playing in this country. Munster conceded 50 points in a Champions Cup round of 16 clash with the Sharks in Durban last season. But since then they’ve played four games in this country, one of them a final and two of them against the Stormers and one each against the Bulls and Sharks, and haven’t lost.
It also may not be coincidental, as Stormers coach John Dobson noted, that the Ospreys’ approach, with their physical approach to contact, their aggressive defensive effort and the work they put in to prevent the chaos on which the Stormers thrive, is similar to the one that Munster have employed.
If it’s catching on and the trend is for games to be more competitive and results less predictable that is a good thing for the competition, and that’s another area where there is a significant improvement on the Super Rugby era.
It did change towards the end when the conference system was introduced and the number of playoff games was extended, but for most of the years of Super Rugby the season was dead for many of the teams beyond the Easter weekend.
Playing in the URC and in Europe has introduced different layers and competitions within the competition that extend interest — much like the battle for places in the Champions and Europa Leagues and the battle to stave off relegation adds different angles and keeps more people engaged in soccer’s Premier League.
The Lions moved into the top eight momentarily with their good win over Leinster before dropping to 10th on the log by the end of the round, but they are now only one point behind the Ospreys and Stormers, placed sixth and seventh, respectively. If results go their way next weekend, they could jump past both those teams and Benetton into fifth.
The point though is that during most of the Super Rugby era 10th at this stage of the season would mean the Lions’ challenge was over, they’d just be playing for pride. Now it is less a playoff place that the Lions will covet but a place in next season’s edition of the prestigious Champions Cup. That’s huge, and similarly there is now jeopardy on that angle for the Stormers.
The log battle, with seismic swings in position from one week to the next because the table is so congested, is fast becoming the story in the URC, and that makes for a great competition.
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