Rain or shine, fans turn out for their franchise teams
The interest generated in the big United Rugby Championship (URC) derby between the Bulls and Stormers in Pretoria confirmed the growth spurt in interest we’ve seen in general in regional/franchise rugby in SA.
If someone had suggested a few years back that there would be a 50,000 crowd at Loftus, even for a Bulls/Stormers game, they would have been laughed at. Yet there it was, with the official figure sent out by the Bulls on social media at halftime being 50,016. And the interest was in evidence not just in Pretoria, but also through the Bulls and Stormers shirts spotted in Cape Town on the morning of the game.
At some stages of the Super Rugby era there was interest generated in specific games that pushed the attendance to sellout or close to it. But in the last seasons of Super Rugby that interest appeared to have died, and even Newlands, which used to be consistently the top venue for attracting spectators, was drawing barely 15,000 to even the biggest games.
As the victorious coach, Jake White, put it, the crowd was a tribute to the quality of both teams — there wouldn’t have been a sell-out if the Stormers weren’t recognised as formidable opponents.
Franchise rugby seems suddenly to be flying high again in this country. Even though the Stormers made enough mistakes in the first half-hour to fill a whole season, it was a fastpaced and high-quality game befitting of the occasion even though it was played on a wet field.
It’s not just Pretoria or Cape Town where rugby seems to be experiencing an upswing. There also appeared to be a bigger crowd at Ellis Park for the Lions/Sharks game than has been in evidence at that venue recently.
Two weeks ago I was in Durban when the Sharks drew more than 30,000 for their clash with the Stormers. Having a crowd that big at a time when the Sharks were bottom of the URC log showed the potential if the good times came back to KwaZulu-Natal rugby.
Selling a rugby match as an entertainment experience clearly works for Durban, but imagine how Kings Park could be heaving if the Sharks actually started to put together a string of decent performances.
Why, exactly, the Sharks are struggling is a whole column of its own. Suffice to say that the problem clearly isn’t the coaching but was sparked by some extremely poor decisions, starting with the long-serving Brian van Zyl and John Plumtree being made to clear their desks almost at the same time in 2013. I did a count last year 34 different people have worked in the Sharks’ coaching staff in the 10 years since Plumtree’s first stint ended.
On top of that, there was some confusing contracting when it came to playing personnel, with Sean Everitt, now doing well with Edinburgh, being completely undermined when the Americans came in and started targeting marquee players that didn’t fit into the coach’s vision.
Plumtree now has more of a handle on the contracting than his predecessors, or it appears so, with some astute purchases already having been made for next season. What is confounding, though, is that he is in a situation where he has to get to know his fellow coaches as much as he needs to get to know the players he is now working with, who are all new to him.
John Dobson has an assistant coach in Dawie Snyman who has been with him for 13 seasons. Dobson recently told me he wouldn’t go anywhere, not even to the Bok job, without Snyman at his side. Defence coach Norman Laker and forwards coach Rito Hlungwani too who have travelled a long road with Dobson. White clearly handpicks his coaches at the Bulls and he works with coaches he wants to work with.
Plumtree will get it right next year and take his team to the same level as the Stormers and Bulls if his bosses show patience, but it will benefit the other SA teams if the Sharks start an upward swing on their performance graph before then.
Ulster and Edinburgh, vying with the Stormers for a top four spot, are set to visit Durban at the end of the month and it would significantly improve the SA chances of having two teams in the top four, meaning two SA quarterfinals, if the Sharks can knock over those teams.
Given what we saw at Loftus this weekend, and what we’ve seen at Cape Town’s DHL Stadium in recent times, both SA playoff games will draw massive support. And with 10,000 tickets already sold for the Stormers’ round of 16 Champions Cup tie against La Rochelle on April 6, a game that is more than a month away, it appears the next step, which is an expression of appetite for games against overseas teams, isn’t far away.