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'South African rugby' warned of 'disastrous' scenario
By PA
Stormers head coach John Dobson admits South Africa’s teams must start justifying their inclusion in the Investec Champions Cup – with help from tournament organisers.
A grim day in the competition saw the Bulls humbled at Loftus Versfeld by Northampton while the under-strength Stormers and Sharks were crushed on the road at Harlequins and Leicester respectively. Between the three sides, 139 points were conceded.
Smaller squad sizes and gruelling travel demands are given as explanations for the under-performance of South African teams, who must also fly to Europe to play away games in the United Rugby Championship.
Dobson, who was missing seven Springboks due to injury including Manie Libbok, Damian Willemse and Frans Malherbe, believes a way to overcome the challenges must be found.
“As South Africans we have to be better. We are not disrespecting (the tournament), but we need to get ourselves into a better position,” Dobson said.
“I don’t know how we solve it. It’s like being invited to someone’s birthday party then complaining about the chips. We are so grateful to be here.
“I see in January we play Leinster in the URC and then Racing. Is there a way to link them up on a tour? That would make it much more palatable.
“We could take our strongest team and play both games at full bore. It’s just this December fixture that has caught us in the last two years.
“For Leicester last season we’d left our whole squad in Cape Town. This was a little bit different. We really are thin. We had Manie down to play against Quins – we’d hoped to mix it up a bit more.
“We only voluntarily didn’t choose six for this game. The rest were injury problems. It’s not a good look, though. If we came to Harlequins at full-noise, that would have been a hell of a game.”
Dobson insists the value of the Champions Cup to South Africa can not be overstated.
“We have to be part of this tournament because it’s such a high level and it’s such a great tournament,” he said
“And if we’re not careful, were we not to be part of the Champions Cup, and the URC morphed into an Anglo League and we went back to the Currie Cup of the 1980s where we were playing Griqualand West and Free State in dusty Kimberley, that would be disastrous for South African rugby.
“This competition is probably what has helped us so much in World Cups. Every breakdown is a competition. Every scrum is a 20-second contest. Every line-out or maul is a contest.
“That has been a massive boost for South African rugby, and we’ve got to make sure we can stay here, but evenings like this evening don’t help.”
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Latest Comments
You can't base it on one match. Leinster, Toulouse, La Rochelle, Bordeaux beat any Super rugby team scoring a lot. Early in the season. Toulouse after scoring 60 v Exeter
Go to commentsVery simple solution in my view. Trim both competitions back to 20 teams. Top half of each league goes to the Champions Cup, bottom half of each league goes to the Challenge Cup. Each competition has 4 groups of 5, you play the rest of your group once, 2 home, 2 away. Group winners, plus the next 4 best clubs regardless of group (what in America they call "Wild Cards") go to the knockout stage.
So you'd have the top 8 in the URC, top 7 in Top 14, and top 5 of the Premiership.
This really seems like a pretty obvious no brainer. There are three top flight leagues across Europe/Africa, with 40 clubs total. The numbers are all very obvious. I think the biggest reason this isn't done is because it leaves with a choice of eliminating a knockout round, or, letting so many from the pool stage through, it makes the pool stage almost meaningless.
That said, I think this still makes sense. You know players are going to be happy with one less round of fixtures. Also allows the Top 14 one less week when they have to overlap with international rugby too.
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