The Vodacom United Rugby Championship restarted a week ago and it did so in a global landscape in rugby that has changed dramatically in favour of the new competition.
Since the 2021/2022 season ended with a tightly fought all South African final between the DHL Stormers and the Vodacom Bulls in Cape Town, the Ireland team has displaced South Africa at the top of the international World Rugby rankings. The historic 2-1 come from behind series win against the All Blacks scored by Ireland on New Zealand soil was the seismic rugby event of the year so far.
The way the Irish dealt with the Kiwis, particularly at forward, was an advert for the positive impact the South African entry into the URC may already be having on rugby in Ireland. The last time some of those Ireland players played club rugby, it was when they were physically overpowered by the Bulls when they wore the colours of Leinster in the semi-final at the RDS Arena. And yet those same players looked strong and at times nigh unstoppable against the All Blacks.
The All Blacks, helped by the tough games against Ireland and then South Africa, have subsequently started to recover and their big win over Argentina last time out suggested they have learned plenty and have re-set. But certainly in the initial stages of the southern hemisphere international season the advantages of the URC were writ large, both in terms of what South Africans get from being aligned with the north and what Ireland get from the South African contact.
Although their teams struggled in last year’s URC, the Welsh too might have benefitted already from the South African involvement, as evidenced by their strong showing on tour here in July, particularly their big efforts at altitude in Pretoria and Bloemfontein.
Watching to see if the Welsh can recover and put in a better challenge for top eight places and therefore playoff qualification is going to be one of many interesting side features of the coming season. It is anticipated that now they have a better idea of what to expect from the South African opposition in particular, the Welsh might be more competitive this time. They will need to be, for their failure last season saw an early end to their interest in the competition and that couldn’t have been good for either the confidence or the economics of rugby in the Principality.
But the big battle we can anticipate in the 2022/23 edition of the Championship and second season of the competition will be the protracted battle for ascendancy anticipated between the South African and Irish teams.
The Irish teams should be smarting after seeing two South African sides contest the inaugural final, but on the plus side, this season will be different to last, and indeed to many that preceded it when the competition was known as the PRO14, due to Leinster’s dominance no longer being assumed.
But one defeat did not destroy Leinster. The Bulls win in Dublin back in June was against a Leinster side that was still shell-shocked by the last gasp defeat they suffered in the Champions Cup final in Marseille. That Leinster have challenged so strongly and consistently for European honours underlines just how strong they are and the depth that has been created is the envy of all.
They will be back as strong contenders this year and maybe even marginal favourites to regain their former hegemony, but the South African teams will have other ideas and the Bulls did make a significant statement with the manner with which they knocked them out of the 2021/2022 competition.
The South African teams will find it tougher this time around though due to their inclusion in the Champions Cup, which means they will be busier, there will be fewer breaks in the season and they will need greater squad depth. That last point might mitigate against the Stormers, who will start as champions but might struggle with squad management in comparison to the Bulls and Cell C Sharks, both of whom at this point are still significantly better off financially than the Cape franchise.
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