That the South African challenge in Europe would end at the quarterfinal stage of both the Heineken Champions Cup and the Challenge Cup was entirely predictable once it was established that all three teams would be traveling.
The Emirates Lions actually did better than many might have expected them to do in being fairly competitive before going down to the Glasgow Warriors at the Scotstoun in the latter competition but all three games were lost by a convincing margin. And the words of television commentator Martin Gillingham after the Cell C Sharks’ initially quite impressive challenge to mighty Toulon might have aptly summed it all up: “For the Sharks it was maybe one flight too many.”
The same applied to the other local sides in fairly equal measure, but perhaps most particularly to the Stormers, who’d initially planned to fly out for their clash with Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park by a direct route last Monday but then had their plans scuppered by logistical complications.
CLASH WITH EASTER MADE TRAVEL TRICKY
This past week was of course the week building up to Easter, and that does imply more people travel, both locally and internationally. Apparently the organisers, mindful of the fact that the Champions Cup has always been a competition the European fans like to travel for, have assured everyone that next year they won’t be coinciding games with Easter.
But while not clashing with a holiday will make flights more accessible, and might ensure they avoid a repeat of the situation whereby the Stormers pretty much had their entire training week reorganised by the travel problems - instead of going out direct on Monday they flew indirect in batches on Tuesday and only got to Exeter late on Wednesday - it might need to go a bit further.
We’re hearing that the round of 16 and the quarterfinal round will remain on consecutive weekends next year, and perhaps that needs to be looked at. The return of the double legged tie of the round of 16, something that was the case before South Africa joined the Champions Cup, might be a better idea going forward. At least then the planning can be done in advance, if the Stormers or Sharks are playing Exeter home and away they will know their schedule.
Both teams had to wait until Sunday evening before knowing where they were playing their quarterfinals the following Saturday, and the problems with that are too obvious to need much explanation. And this isn’t just a gripe on behalf of the South African teams, Montpellier might have faced a situation as challenging as that faced by the Stormers had they held on to win their round of 16 game and found themselves flying to Cape Town for a quarterfinal.
SHARKS HAD ENERGY, STORMERS DIDN’T
The Sharks’ journey to Toulouse wasn’t completely different from that faced by the Stormers to get to Exeter, but what was different was that the Durban team appeared to follow the timing and schedule that had been planned. So they got two training sessions in at HollywoodBets Kings Park before they flew out and there was a lot less disruption.
It showed in their game too, for while this might seem an odd thing to say when they conceded 50 points, their quarterfinal was in some ways one of their best of the season. It is normally the Sharks who tend to produce flat performances and the Stormers revolve a lot around their work-rate and energy.
This past weekend those roles were reversed. While for the Sharks part of the reason might be that John Plumtree, as appears to be an open secret now, has perhaps exerted some unofficial influence behind the scenes in preparation for him officially taking over the Sharks coaching reins in July, for the Stormers their out of character performance looked to be down to that one flight too many.
The Sharks were very impressive for the first 66 minutes, and if they can produce that sort of passion and intensity more consistently going forward, they should become consistent challengers for both the Heineken Cup and Vodacom United Rugby Championship titles.
They were let down a bit by their defence at times, with Toulouse too easily finding space, but then the French team is as laden with French internationals as the Sharks have Springboks and not for nothing is the club the record holder for the number of titles in the competition (five).
When Toulouse needed class to get them out of a hole they produced it. But the Sharks too attacked with a potency and occasionally also a panache that we haven’t seen from them for a long time and it kept them in the game until the final minutes. Toulouse piled on the agony once the Sharks had given up the ghost, which was a pity as it was never a 54-20 game.
BOTH TEAMS SORELY MISSED IMPORTANT PLAYERS
Both the Sharks and the Stormers also started the quarterfinal round missing perhaps their most important respective players in Eben Etzebeth and Deon Fourie. There’s a long argument to be had for who missed who more, and there are lots of opinions, but it would be safe to suggest both were badly missed by their respective teams.
Fourie’s absence because of an eye-socket injury meant the Stormers didn’t have their usual success at slowing down opposition ball and that left them compromised on a day where Exeter were really up for it - some of the English media described their performance as their best of the season - and who were so good at recycling and keeping play flowing through the phases.
The Stormers never fired a shot, at least not until it was way too late, and effectively lost the game in the first half. If you factor in that their big defeat to Ulster a few months back was with a second string team, then this was their worst performance of the last two years.
But as with the Sharks, the question that should be asked is - how would they have gone had it been them waiting for Exeter at home all week rather than the other way around? They might well have got by even without Fourie. For the message from the first season of South African participation in the Champions Cup is a clear one, and that is that getting home ground advantage in the playoffs is critical.
AWAY GROUP STAGE BONUS POINTS ARE GOLD
All four games saw one sided wins for the hosts, and perhaps something said by the aforementioned commentator, Gillingham, earlier in the season needs to be heeded too. It was in the second half of the Stormers’ defeat to Clermont in their first ever Heinken Champions Cup game when late in the game they surrendered the losing bonus point.
“The Stormers, once they have experienced this competition more, will realise that an away bonus point in the group stages of this competition is gold.”
Indeed, the seedings going into the play-offs from the group stage were decided by very small margins. Had the Sharks got a losing bonus point in their away defeat to Harlequins, had the Stormers done the same at Clermont, we could have seen a different outcome with the teams playing their quarterfinals at home.
TALENT PIPELINE CAN OFFSET FINANCIAL DISADVANTAGES
There is of course another big stumbling block for local teams, one highlighted by Vodacom Bulls director of rugby earlier in the season: The money wielded by some of the top overseas clubs, and therefore the depth they are able to draw on, can’t be competed with by the South African teams.
What South Africa does have though is a fertile breeding ground for talent like perhaps no other rugby country has, with what has been happening with the Stormers since they started to sort out their pipeline and focusing on the riches they have in their region being a good example of why there is potential for local teams to compete even without massive financial resources.
Becoming a top team though requires holding onto the talent that you nurture, and that might be a more tricky problem. There is a reason why Leinster are the only URC team remaining in the Champions Cup: their succession planning has created a squad that can minimise the impact of travel by saving their top players in some games. As they did towards the latter stages of last year’s URC, and they are likely to do it again when they come to South Africa this week to play the Lions and the Bulls.
Heineken Champions Cup quarterfinal results
?Leinster 55 Leicester 24
Toulouse 54 Cell C Shark 20
Exeter Chiefs 42 DHL Stormers 17
La Rochelle 24 Saracens 10
Challenge Cup quarterfinals
Scarlets 32 Clermont-Auvergne 30
Toulon 48 Toulon 23
Benetton 27 Cardiff Rugby 23
Glasgow Warriors 31 Emirates Lions 21