The Sharks’ winning the Challenge Cup was great from not only the Durban team’s perspective but also SA rugby as a whole as it ensures there will be at least three local teams playing in next season’s prestigious Champions Cup.
That the elite competition is where the Sharks need to be should have been drummed home to them by two things before the game even kicked off. Firstly, on paper the Gloucester side that was announced looked like the second rate English club team that they are. While the Sharks at full strength are a better team than their 13th position in the United Rugby Championship (URC), Gloucester, both on the team sheet and in performance, look like a team that finished ahead of only the winless Newcastle Falcons in the English Premiership.
Secondly, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium looked less than half-full for the game, which was a stark contrast to how it looked for the next day’s epic Champions Cup final between Toulouse and Leinster. Which is how it should be and the Sharks expected it to be — their skipper Eben Etzebeth said his men knew they weren’t playing in the “main final”.
The main final or thereabouts is where the Sharks need to be given the star quality on their team sheet, and they need to be part of the big events going forward rather than playing in the curtain-raiser. And that is why while it wasn’t the main event, the final of the secondary European Rugby Champions Cup (EPCR) competition was a huge game for the Sharks — they are too ambitious to be satisfied with the mediocre opposition that visited Kings Park this season.
While the Sharks had by far the more star studded team on paper, rugby matches, and particularly finals, are not played on paper. The plan still needed to be executed. The Sharks played perfect finals rugby, using their forward strength to shut Gloucester out of the game, employing a strong tactical kicking game and applying scoreboard pressure. The Sharks have a monstrous scrum and with Trevor Nyakane in the stands cheering on his new teammates, it was a reminder of what is to come for the Sharks next season — the new law adjustments that could undermine the importance of scrumming notwithstanding.
The Sharks showed in their great fightback to edge out Clermont Auvergne, the highest quality opponent they played on the way to the final, that they now have their culture right. And you don’t have to think too hard in the quest to establish where the switch was flicked in their game. That came once Siya Masuku was introduced to the No 10 jersey in early March.
With the Lions’ Jordan Hendrikse moving to Durban at the end of the season, the Sharks will have proper alternatives to Curwin Bosch, who though he has produced some pleasing recent cameos was persisted with too long as the go-too man considering his penchant for lining too deep.
With Masuku there, the Sharks are a lot more fluid and potent attacking unit, and Hendrikse should bring the same dynamic.
But while the Sharks’ future is starting to look a lot more promising, they do need to put their Challenge Cup success into context. Yes, it was a historic triumph as they became the first SA team to win an EPCR competition, but they will acknowledge that it was only because last year they weren’t good enough in the URC to make it into the Champions Cup.
Given that having the Challenge Cup in their trophy cabinet means only the top seven in the URC qualify for the Champions Cup, it would feel a bit unfair if the Lions finish eighth but lose out to a team they finished a long way ahead of on the URC log and they beat in both head to head encounters. That said, the Lions did play in the Challenge Cup, and had an opportunity to do what the Sharks did.
Stormers supporters might not like this, but given the Stormers cannot finish lower than seventh and they therefore qualify for the Champions Cup regardless of the result, an unexpected Lions win in Cape Town would be the best result for SA if it means the Lions finish seventh. That would mean four local teams in the Champions Cup next season.
From the Sharks’ viewpoint, they’ve achieved their objective but I hope they put as much into their final URC game against the Bulls as they did into the final. To win the Challenge Cup they never had to beat any team ranked higher than eighth in its league — even Clermont were a lowly ninth in the Top 14 — and a win over the current second placed URC team would provide the confirmation of the Sharks’ growth that frankly a win over the ninth best team in England couldn’t.
It’s a home game for the Sharks and finishing with a flourish against a very good Bulls team will send out the message that they can compete with the top teams. They didn’t win the Challenge Cup against a top team.
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