The Stormers were knocked out of the lucrative and prestigious Champions Cup this past weekend, joining the Bulls, Lions and Sharks on the sidelines this coming weekend. Photo: AFP
Image: Backpagepix
In September 2020, SA Rugby withdrew their provincial teams from Super Rugby, blaming New Zealand for the exit. SA Rugby felt that the Kiwis were selfishly looking after themselves as Covid-19 rocked the world and preferred a trans-Tasman competition with Australia.
The Bulls, Sharks, Lions, and Stormers packed their Super Rugby bags and went north to Europe, where the PRO14 competition — featuring the Celtic nations of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, plus Italy and two South African “rejects” in the Cheetahs and Southern Kings — welcomed the top SA teams with open arms.
The Cheetahs and Kings were replaced by the four Super Rugby teams, and the competition was renamed the United Rugby Championship (URC). There was the added bonus that the SA teams could also qualify for the prestigious Champions Cup, featuring the best teams from the URC, the English Premiership, and the French Top 14.
Well, life has never been the same for many South African supporters — perhaps the majority — who find it all too confusing. They get the URC, the Champions Cup (and the second-tier Challenge Cup) mixed up and struggle to understand how their teams qualify for which competition.
The best way I have been able to explain it to sports fans who also follow European football is that rugby in Europe pretty much follows the format of European football. For instance, if you are a staunch follower of the English Premiership, you know that the top four teams at the end of the season go through to the Champions League, where they meet the top finishers from other European leagues. And the teams finishing fifth and sixth in the Premiership go through to the second-tier Europa League.
It is similar to rugby — in the 16-team URC, the top eight finishers qualify for the next season’s Champions Cup, along with the top-finishing teams from England and France. And the lower teams in the URC filter into the Challenge Cup (the "Europa" of rugby) alongside lower-finishing teams from England and France.
Like football, those cup competitions are divided into pools, and there is a qualification process for the knockout games leading to the finals.
Where a lot of followers get confused is that during the marathon URC season (nine months from the start to the play-offs), there are breaks for Champions and Challenge Cup pool games.
While playing in the current Champions and Challenge Cup, and in the URC, the 16 teams are in a fight to qualify for the next season’s Champions Cup. This is the much-talked-about "Race to Eight", because the top eight finishers not only go through to the URC quarter-finals but qualify for the next season’s Champions Cup.
Hopefully, this explanation removes some of the mud from the water for the rugby supporter, but if not, don’t be dismayed — our rugby teams are still working it out for themselves, as evidenced by South Africa’s stellar participation in the URC and hopeless performances in the cups. Apart from the Sharks winning the Challenge Cup in 2024, no SA team has made the semi-finals of the Champions Cup, and for two years in a row now, no local team has made the quarter-finals.
For all the happy trumpeting about South Africa’s entry into Europe five years ago, our local teams have not cottoned on to just how big the Champions Cup is. When Bordeaux won it last year in the final in Cardiff, a local public holiday was declared on the Monday, and 100 000 fans greeted the team on their trophy parade through the city centre.
One of the few things that has rubbed off on the SA teams is that they are now calling themselves “clubs”. This is a good thing because “franchises” is an awful marketing invention.
But why the Bulls, Sharks, Lions and Stormers are non-performers in the Champions Cup is an interesting story for another day.