The intrigue surrounding the final round of the United Rugby Championship (URC) played out into the post match press conference after the Lions’ agonising defeat to the Stormers in Cape Town.
When Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen came into the press conference we congratulated him. With Edinburgh clearly condemned to a big defeat to Benetton in Treviso in a game that kicked off a quarter of an hour later, the perception was that their losing bonus point was enough to see the Lions into the playoffs.
The Ospreys? Where did they come from? But Van Rooyen was right, his team had to wait for the later game in Cardiff, where the result did not go their way. Most pundits had seen 10th-placed Connacht as the cut-off when it came to teams that were still in contention going into the deciding final round.
It was an agonising miss for the Lions, who had a difficult decision to make seven minutes from the end. Go for the playoffs or go for the bigger prize of Champions Cup qualification? The Sharks’ triumph in the Challenge Cup the week before meant only the top seven teams would qualify for the Champions Cup.
The Lions were on the Stormers’ line when they were awarded the penalty they elected to kick to reclaim the lead. Had they gone the other route in a great attacking position, and scored a try, they would have had a bigger lead and three tries. One more would have been needed for the bonus point win they needed for their first entry into the elite Champions Cup with six minutes to go against a 14-man Stormers team.
As it turned out, Ulster’s losing bonus point against Munster later in the evening would have pushed the Lions into eighth anyway. So it was a playoff place they missed out on, not Champions Cup qualification.
But that there was so much at stake and so many permutations to consider — and later in the games in Cardiff, Limerick and Durban too — was a great advertisement for the competitiveness of the URC.
Not that the URC needs punting as much in this country as the Champions Cup does. Eben Etzebeth described the Champions Cup as the World Cup of club rugby and it is very close to it. SA crowd attendances suggest he’s also right when he says locals have still to wake up to that reality.
The Sharks’ celebrations may have seemed a bit over the top if you consider the only reason they made history by becoming the first SA team to win an EPCR tournament was that they weren’t good enough to qualify for the Champions Cup. For a team with such star quality, that is ridiculous — just as it is ridiculous that they again failed to qualify by the conventional route of finishing in the top eight of their league this season.
Context
It is the context though that has inspired the celebratory mood — as Etzebeth said, the Sharks have to be part of the Champions Cup; they can’t afford not to be. But the Sharks need to be realistic. Getting in through the Challenge Cup is getting in through the back door, and now they are in the Champions Cup, they will no longer have that avenue open to them. Their coach, John Plumtree, has acknowledged that, and also the requirement of depth that makes consistent Champions Cup qualification possible.
The URC schedule for next season is already out, and it confirmed that the Sharks will be without their top Springboks such as Etzebeth, Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi, Vincent Koch, Lukhanyo Am, Makazole Mapimpi, Jaden Hendrikse and probably newcomers André Esterhuizen and Trevor Nyakane too for at least the first four games. The first two games clash with the last two in the Rugby Championship and it is unlikely the players will be allowed to return to action immediately after the conclusion of what is going to be a busy southern hemisphere international season.
The Sharks need players who can carry the load when those players are absent, with this season’s URC failure down to lack of sufficient reserve depth as much as anything else. At full strength, the Sharks can push for silverware, even in the Champions Cup.
Referencing that last point, while it would have felt unfair for the Lions had they ended eighth but been kept out by the Sharks, having the Durbanites there instead of the Lions will give SA a better chance of Champions Cup success.
Their game against the Stormers was a microcosm of the Lions’ season. They show great promise and are growing, but in the end they just weren’t good enough by a narrow margin. With the Sharks likely to be stronger in the URC and the competition for Champions Cup places therefore even stiffer, maybe the Lions should take a lead from the Sharks and look at the Challenge Cup as an alternative route to qualification.
Yet right now they probably don’t have the depth to spread effectively across two fronts, and the URC is the much more important competition.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.