Life is serene and the waters are calm for Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks. They have won the past two World Cups, and the last pair of major competitions in which they participated. They have beaten their ancient rivals the All Blacks three times in a row. They are based contentedly south of rugby’s great divide.
Swap the myrtle-and-gold jersey for a shirt belonging to the Sharks, Stormers, Bulls or Lions and the same players do not look half as impressive up north. If there is any itch in Rassie-World the Springbok supremo cannot reach, let alone scratch, it is the yawning gap between overwhelming success at national level and a paucity of silverware on the tier below it.
That is integrally related to the 12-month season to which the top South African players are now committed: from September to June, the URC and the two EPCR tournaments in north; in July, tours of the Republic by the northern nations; from August to October, the Rugby Championship south of the equator while everyone else is regenerating into pre-season preparation up north. Then the whole cycle begins, all over again. Facing both ways, north and south like some two-faced Roman god is not doing anything for South African rugby’s cohesion.
Warren Gatland’s recent experience with Wales reminded everyone else on planet rugby you can only sustain success at the top of the pyramid for so long before the reality at the base kicks in. In his first coming as Wales coach between 2008 and 2019, Gatland won four Six Nations titles, three Grand Slams and achieved two semi-finals at the World Cup. Wales even briefly topped the world rankings in August 2019 after a record 14-match unbeaten run. For heaven’s sakes, ‘Gats’ even beat the Bokke on four occasions and had a set of gates outside the Principality stadium named after him.
In his guise of Great Redeemer come to save Welsh rugby for a second time [2022-2025], there was no repeat miracle. Wales lost 14 consecutive Test matches, slipped out of the top 10 in the world rankings for the first time in their history, and lost 20 of their 26 games overall. There were no palm leaves and confetti, just a rough slouch towards the ignominy of resignation in February, midway through a Six Nations tournament which had always been his speciality.
One year before he departed, Gatland had effectively predicted his own fate by calling out Welsh regional rugby as ‘a sinking ship’.
“I was asked the question about where Irish rugby was at, and where we were at – the structure and systems,” he said.
“What I was highlighting was the importance of us, for the next 10 years, if we want success and sustainability, [of] having the best facilities and support staff, whether that’s coaches, medical staff, or strength and conditioning.
“Before we start thinking about anything else, that’s probably where the difference was at the moment. Ireland have got their systems and structures in place and we’ve got a little bit of a way to go.”
During Gatland’s first tenure, Welsh regions only won the URC [or equivalent] twice. They have not won it or reached a final since. No Welsh region has ever won a Champions Cup and only Cardiff appeared in a final, playing ironically as a club rather than a region at the tournament’s inception in 1996-97.
South Africa may not be in the same parlous situation as Wales, but the spectre of the chasm between national and club/provincial rugby is growing. The ghosts of Christmas past may be only tapping Rassie on the shoulder right now, but an all-year round commitment to the oval ball is taking its toll on South Africa’s best. The four squads are not deep enough to sustain challenges on multiple fronts, and quality of performance is bleeding out into the cracks between the two hemispheres, between club and international demands.
The ex-Super Rugby franchises have already had to sacrifice their ambitions in the two major European competitions – the Champions and Challenge Cup – to try and prove a point domestically, in the URC. The Bulls were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the Challenge Cup by Edinburgh, while the Sharks raised the white flag in Lyon in the round of 16. None of the South African franchises even made it to the knockout stages of the Champions Cup, only winning three of their nine games at the pool stage.
In the URC, South African sides have lost the last two home finals [the Stormers to Munster in 2022-23 and the Bulls to Glasgow in 2023-24] after winning at their first attempt in 2021-22. And the current southern hemisphere opinion of the URC? Listen to Stephen Donald, the All Blacks’ white-baiting saviour at the 2011 World Cup, speaking on Sky Sport’s The Breakdown recently: “The URC competition is probably a low [level]… a very, very low level compared to Super Rugby; the Champions Cup stuff certainly would be [the same].”
The man nicknamed ‘Beaver’ may be wrong in his assessment of the standard of URC play – at least six of the teams would be highly competitive, and three would be capable of winning it – but it does offer a valid context to South Africa’s current struggles at provincial level.
As the resident RugbyPass doyen of all things South African, Jon Cardinelli commented in a Rugby365 column: “The never-ending South African season has certainly diluted the potency of these teams over the past few years. That said, they aren’t entirely blameless for their present situation.
“From the outset, it was clear the franchises needed to manage their resources smartly while securing sufficient log points and results across the respective competitions.
“But in most cases, weakened teams sustained heavy Champions Cup losses. Stronger combinations failed to fire in the URC, with some franchises losing games they should have won and missing out on crucial points.
“Fast forward to the present, and the Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions are at a crossroads.”
The Springboks’ continued involvement in the Rugby Championship entails a year-long merry-go-round for the top players in the Republic and it is not sustainable. With a foot in both worlds, the tectonic plates are shifting further apart and only Rassie’s herculean efforts are pulling them together.
The good news is three of the four franchises have qualified for the URC play-offs. The Bulls and the Sharks reserved their starting strength for a winning four-match tour of the UK and Ireland in rounds 15 and 16. The winning margin may only have been 14 points over those four games, but it was a new statement of seriousness by South African rugby.
The most impressive achievement was the 26-19 victory over current URC holders Glasgow by Jake White’s Bulls at Scotstoun. It was an elegant payback for their loss in last season’s final and the visitors were always in control of proceedings.
One of the most interesting players on the Bulls roster is the loosehead prop who can double up as a hooker, Jan-Hendrik Wessels. Wessels in one of the new breed required to play rugby in Rassie-World – big at 121kg but multi-positional. At present, Wessels ranks behind Gerhard Steenekamp as a loosehead and Johan Grobbelaar as a hooker, but such players are at a premium if South African rugby is to be able to compete on so many fronts in different hemispheres simultaneously.
Wessels is big but he is also fast, and well able to function as part of the forwards scramble which is so necessary to bulwark the front line of a typical South African rush defence.
After getting up from a head-spinning scrum effort on the Glasgow 40m line on the wide left, the big man is able to rouse himself for a sprint to the far corner of the field on the following play, which knocks down flying Argentine wing Sebastián Cancelliere and holds the ball up over the goal-line for a Bulls turnover.
Wessels’ other involvements as a defender were just as impressive throughout the game, whether they came on defensive reads in the tackle the or contests on the ground after one had been made.
In the first clip, the most impressive aspect of Wessels’ play is his decisiveness in recognising Glasgow 10 Tom Jordan as the main threat and acting on that information immediately. In the second he demonstrates a Malcolm Marx-like ability to get on-ball which was reinforced throughout the match.
Wessels is typical of the new generation of South African forward Erasmus wants to see at the top of the men’s game: powerful but versatile, committed to his core role at scrum time but with a rugby IQ far beyond it.
Janus was the Roman god of new beginnings and doorways. The two-faced god could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. While Erasmus may well be South Arican rugby’s own rugby equivalent of a demigod at national level, the innate problem of facing in two directions at once has been amply underlined on the tier below.
The Republic is trying to keep a foot in both worlds by competing in northern hemisphere club tournaments and the Rugby Championship in the south at one and the same time, all year round. It is stretching even South Africa’s vast playing and logistical resources to the limit, and beyond.
If the four ex-Super Rugby franchises cannot find a way to make it work in the URC and European cups, it will be Rassie’s Springboks in the tier above who ultimately feel the strain. That is the lesson of Gatland’s Wales – a career in two halves, one faced towards success, and another towards failure.
The lack of an open mind is always sad JD, and that’s the probable cause here.
Well you had a huge following and they certainly didn't value that! It's as if they actively want a lowest common denominator reputation, even if it costs them clicks
For someone who supposedly does not give a s**t you sure like to keep replying which suggests otherwise numpty.
I would send you a shovel for the hole you keep digging yourself into but honestly I think you need a Caterpillar….
Jeez man, go pester someone who gives a s**t.🙄🤣
You’re suffering from something called Dunning Kruger effect and over estimate your abilities.
Tim, Schalk, Shimi, Jean, Jim Hamilton, Andy Goode and others are streets ahead of you.
I think you fit in at a level along with John Kirwan and Ben Smith.
Have a great day.
Constructive criticism is always welcome, and it’s one of the reasons I involve myself so much in the forums afterwards. There are several intelligent posters here whose opinions I respect and enjoy, and I engage freely with them. I like to give everyone a chance to enter the conversation.
Once in a while, you get someone who feels they are fully entitled to dictate rather than converse, and this is you.
You clearly have your own idea of what articles deserve to be published on RP, how ppl need to go about the business of writing them, how they should react to your posts and how poorly they compare to your favourites on YT and Eggchasers.
What you choose to read/view and what you don’t is entirely up to you. But the choice stays with you.
If you have a problem with RP content then it’s your problem, so own it.
That’s all, your time is up.
Nick, the hyperlinks in the emails that are sent out do not connect to replies in the chat and nor do the links on the page, which makes it very difficult to respond when there are 167 comments, so sorry if I have not replied to you, but simply cannot find your post
No worries. I find myself having to scroll through too!
SA sides were just as ineffective in Super Rugby. Then they blamed having to play an extra game on the road. Their bully boy style is just not as effective at provincial level.