Cup exits should not distress SA sides too much
There’s a good chance SA’s first foray into the Heineken Champions Cup will come to an end next weekend but if that proves the case the quarterfinal exit should not be a reason for huge disappointment or for local coaches to go into mourning.
This was an exploratory year for the newcomers to the competition, and one of the big lessons that should have been internalised by the South Africans is how difficult it is to win games overseas.
Which is of course the reason for my rather pessimistic view of their chances on Saturday, when the Sharks travel to play Toulouse and the Stormers head to Exeter Chiefs.
The ease with which Toulouse dealt with the Bulls on Sunday was expected. The club that has won the prestigious European competition more than any other is a notoriously formidable opponent at home, as are most French teams.
The Sharks, with all their Springboks and Eben Etzebeth in particular, for he has quickly become their talisman, must stand an outside chance of causing an upset just because of the number of marquee players they have.
Why you wouldn ’ t bet on them winning though is because even in posting 50 points against Munster in their round of 16 tie, there were still periods when they didn’t sync like a team that is challenging for top honours should.
The two winning local teams in the round of 16 did experience remarkably similar afternoons when it came to the flow of their respective games.
In both cases, the winning margin wasn’t an accurate reflection of the amount of jeopardy in the game for the home sides.
The Sharks ’ game was done and dusted as a contest when Curwin Bosch scored the breakaway try that made it 4314, and ditto the Stormers’ game when Willie Engelbrecht’s try made it 32-7 with six minutes left.
It is the Sharks though that should be more concerned about their defence, for their defensive organisation is an ongoing concern.
For the Stormers, it is the opposite. The Cape side has great attacking ability, but it is really their aggressive and busy defence that is the platform for their success. They got that right for most of the Cape Town game, and in the final minutes the Harlequins scoring underlined the importance to the Stormers of Deon Fourie more than anything else. When the man of the match wasn’t on the field to slow Harlequins’ ball down, they struggled.
Not that they were ever going to lose, and you’d say the same about the Sharks — home ground advantage is just so important in the Champions Cup. And the team records for the season sum that up. None of the Bulls, Stormers or Sharks lost a home game. But they weren’t so flush away from home, particularly not the Bulls, who lost both fixtures.
The Sharks did score a gutsy away win over the Bordeaux Begles but they couldn’t repeat the advantage they had over the Harlequins when the two sides met at Kings Park in December when they played the away game at The Stoop in London. Though the Stormers dealt easily enough with London Irish, they were outplayed by a Clermont second-half surge in their one game in France.
The Stormers are the one SA team guaranteed participation in next year’s Champions Cup. The Sharks and Bulls, placed eighth and seventh respectively in the United Rugby Championship (URC) with two games to play, still have a bit to do to ensure they are there again next year.
But should they achieve their objective, they will join the Stormers in feeling they have learnt valuable lessons — and have also now faced challenges that they know need to be faced down.
One of those biggest challenges is the travel entailed in being part of both the Heineken Cup and the URC. SA coaches and players used to complain about the travel in Super Rugby, but playing in Europe has been a different level and the pitfalls can be summed up by the quandary both the Stormers and Sharks coaches face heading into the quarterfinal round.
Both have important URC games to play at home the week after the quarterfinals, and the extra travel is probably the last thing they need right now if they are to be properly fresh and prepared for those games. Hopefully a way will be found to lessen the travel challenge, for the games in Durban and Cape Town gave a taste of the atmosphere and the quality of play generated by the competition.
Certainly no-one should have left either Kings Park or Cape Town Stadium at the weekend feeling they had been short-changed.