WHILE THE EYES of the rugby world are drawn to the big stage, it’s worth pointing out the start of another drama in an off Broadway setting.
For years the URC has been fighting a credibility battle, the frequent name changes doing little for its image, the unnecessarily complicated conference system being an experiment they really shouldn’t have bothered with.
Throw the issues of a global pandemic into the mix and you hardly have the perfect conditions to launch a rebrand. At last, though, it’s starting. Munster may be playing their 12th game of the campaign today, Bulls their 11th, but this is the moment when we discover what kind of future this league has.
Up until last night, the South African franchises have had to do it all on everyone else’s terms, travelling north of the equator minus their Springbok contingent for the early part of the season, dieting on local derbies for the next section of it.
From now, though, they get the chance to play host. First up for the Bulls today is Munster (kick off 2.05pm Irish time, Premier Sports, TG4). Currently just outside the play-off places, the three-time Super Rugby champions have the chance to pounce. Including today’s game, seven of their concluding eight regular season fixtures are on South African soil.
It’s the same story for their neighbours; the Sharks – who beat Scarlets last night; the Stormers and the Lions. Three of those sides have banked enough points to launch a bid for the play-offs, the Lions needing a miracle to have any chance of joining them.
Yet even if the Johannesburg-based side don’t make it, this competition will have a completely different feel to it if three of the quarter-finalists are tournament newbies. Throw in the possibility of one of the Bulls, Stormers or Sharks hosting a play-off match and suddenly you can see why every point counts.
You don’t need to tell Johann van Graan any of this. He knows. So far this season, he has seen two Munsters. At home, they’re unbeaten. Away, they’ve been inconsistent – brilliant at Scarlets and Wasps, awful in Connacht, Ospreys and Glasgow.
You can see where we’re going with this. Finish the regular season in the top two and they’ve a home pathway right through to the final. That’s where you want to be when you are eight from eight at Thomond Park. The one place you don’t want to be is here, in Pretoria, or Cape Town, or Durban.
“When I was with the Bulls, teams like the Crusaders, Brumbies came to us – when those sides were at their best – and each of them found it hard to get a result here,” said van Graan.
“That is the challenge that lies ahead. In my experience (as a coach) it is a lot easier to go from heat to the cold but we have to go from the cold to the heat. And you add altitude on top of that. It is something we are not used to from an Irish perspective.”
You imagine some of van Graan’s fears intensified last night after watching Scarlets throw away a game they would have won had it been played in Llanelli. Here the difference between home and away became plainly clear, the Sharks refusing to buckle during a sticky period, eventually getting things their own way.
After that win they are suddenly creeping up on Edinburgh, Glasgow, Munster, who have each taken 39 points from 11 games. Ulster and Leinster may be too far ahead but what happens if the South Africans get on a roll, if one win becomes two, if two becomes three, if three becomes four? What happens if the 16-point gap between Munster and Bulls gets trimmed?
What happens is this. Teams and fans, with two or three rounds to go, will suddenly realise there is something meaningful at stake in these regular season matches, that you need to fight tooth and nail for every point because the last thing you want is to book the kitbag into the baggage area to head off for a quarter-final south of the equator.
They may not think it but Munster, Glasgow and Edinburgh are slightly vulnerable and it isn’t Ospreys or Connacht they need to be worried about. No, it’s the teams they are still trying to figure out, Bulls, Stormers and Sharks, who’ve finished the bulk of their travel requirements.
“At home, it’s different,” van Graan said. “From my experience, no one just turned up at Loftus, at Cape Town, at Ellis Park, at Durban, and just won. They’re tough venues. Believe me.”
It’s a message he’ll be drilling into his players today. And they are his players, 13 of them handed their Munster debut by van Graan. He’s built this squad up, using over 50 players in this season as well as last year.
“I’m very proud of the squad we have developed,” van Graan said.
“If you look at how we finished last week’s game, we had Alex Kendellen, a No8 at lock; we had Gavin Coombes, another No8 at lock; we had Jack Crowley at 15, Craig Casey on the wing. You need flexibility; you need depth when you have Six Nations matches on and your international players are away.
“That is why this is an exciting tour for these guys to be on, to play the Bulls and Lions at altitude. It’s a big challenge.”
Minus their made men – O’Mahony, Murray, Earls, Carbery and Beirne – they look vulnerable to the power, skill and confidence of South Africa’s most famous franchise which is why it is all the more fascinating to see which kids graduate into big players.
This is where van Graan, even Andy Farrell, can figure out if they’re ready for bigger days. And that, in a nutshell, is the hidden value of this much-maligned league.
Vodacom Bulls: Kurt-Lee Arendse, Cornal Hendricks, Lionel Mapoe, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Embrose Papier; Gerhard Steenekamp, Johan Grobbelaar, Jacques van Rooyen, Walt Steenkamp, Ruan Nortje, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Arno Botha, Elrigh Louw
Replacements: Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Robert Hunt, Janko Swanepoel, WJ Steenkamp; Zak Burger, Morne Steyn, Canan Moodie
Munster: Mike Haley; Calvin Nash, Chris Farrell, Rory Scannell, Simon Zebo; Ben Healy, Neil Cronin; Josh Wycherley, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer; Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley; Jack O’Donoghue (C), Chris Cloete, Alex Kendellen.
Replacements: Diarmuid Barron, Mark Donnelly, John Ryan, Eoin O’Connor, John Hodnett, Paddy Patterson, Jack Crowley, Damian de Allende.
Referee: Ben Whitehouse (WRU)