We are just two rounds into the 2023/24 edition of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship but already some of the favoured teams have losses on their record as the third season of the competition gets off to an interesting start.
The team that shocked perennial log winners Leinster in the opening round led the list of casualties in round two, with Glasgow Warriors being reminded that visiting Galway and the Sportsground to play against Connacht can be a perilous proposition. Connacht came close to completing a fairytale similar to that of eventual winners Munster last year, but they started the season slowly and could thank momentum picked up in the second half of the season for making the playoffs.
This time around they are doing things a little differently, and have picked up nine log points from their first two games to lie second behind the log leaders, the DHL Stormers. It is still the embryonic stage of the new season, so no one will be reading too much into log positions just yet, but Connacht are in a very different position to the corresponding stage of last season’s campaign.
There again, they did start on the road in 2022/23, losing two games in South Africa first up. They head to South Africa in a couple of weeks, with a clash with a Hollywoodbets Sharks team at Kings Park that should by then have welcomed back some of their World Cup winning Springboks first on their tour fixture list, and that will be a litmus test for them.
For now, though, Connacht are styling, whereas their victims this past weekend will feel they suffered an unwanted setback after the good win over Leinster that got their season off to a rollicking start. Franco Smith’s men did pick up a four-try bonus point but would have wanted more as they now prepare for what could be a tough game against the Stormers at the Scotstoun on Friday night.
The Stormers have started the season well, controlling the game for most of the way against the Emirates Lions in Johannesburg in their opening fixture before altitude inevitably caught up with them to put a false gloss on the scoreboard for the losers, and then scoring a big win over Scarlets in Stellenbosch.
However, their coach John Dobson will know full well that playing the first two games in South Africa represented a bit of a honeymoon period for his men. Glasgow was one of the venues where they lost in the league phase last season and after that, they are heading to three other venues where they have yet to win in the URC - Cardiff, Treviso and Munster.
That last mentioned game is an eagerly awaited one as it is a replay of last year’s epic URC final in Cape Town, and the Stormers do have a score to settle against their Irish rivals, who have yet to lose to the Cape franchise.
But Munster’s own experience away to Benetton this weekend proved that the Stormers shouldn’t be looking too far ahead as their visit to Treviso the week after next is no gimme either. Munster had to dig deep in a game where they trailed the whole way before they scored a try at the death to level the scores and escape with a draw.
Munster were the only Irish team to drop points this past weekend, with Leinster and Ulster joining Connacht on the winning trail by completing a double over South African teams. Leinster bounced back from their chastening first-round defeat to score a comfortable win over the Sharks, while Ulster did well to hold off the determined Vodacom Bulls, who came back at them strongly towards the end, in a Sunday evening game at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast.
Ulster are formidable opponents on their home ground so the Bulls, the beaten finalists in the inaugural season of the URC, won’t be too unhappy to have left Belfast with a losing bonus point. Yet with just a little bit more accuracy to their game, they could have scored a shock win to really boost their confidence.
Although pressed towards the end, Ulster, who were playing for the first time on their newly laid synthetic surface, were in control for most of the way and do look likely to continue what they did last season, where they fought hard to clinch second place ahead of the Stormers but then blew it by losing unexpectedly to Connacht in the quarterfinal round.
The Sharks had shown some signs of encouragement in their opening loss to Munster but they never fired a shot against Leinster, who as expected were in a vengeful mood after their loss to Glasgow and never let their opponents into the game. They served notice with their comfortable win that they will again be challenging strongly for the pole position they have hogged in the first two seasons of the URC and lets not forget that they will shortly be acquiring the services of a World Cup winning coach in the form of Springbok mentor Jacques Nienaber.
Talking of coaches, Sean Everitt, formerly the head coach at the Sharks, has got his new challenge at the helm of Edinburgh off to a positive start. His team won in Wales in the first week and then followed that up with a narrow but exciting win over the Lions in his first home game in charge. The Lions have now lost two games by a narrow margin but showed plenty of promise.
Promise might not be the word to apply to the Welsh challenge at this point, with Scarlets being well beaten in South Africa and the Ospreys only just getting the better of Zebre, but Cardiff did serve notice that they won’t be giving up the Welsh Shield in a hurry as they scored a tight win over Dragons in their derby in Newport.
Vodacom United Rugby Championship results
Ospreys 34-31 Zebre
Connacht 34-26 Glasgow Warriors
DHL Stormers 52-07 Scarlets
Leinster 34-13 Hollywoodbets Sharks
Edinburgh 17-16 Emirates Lions
Benetton 13-13 Munster
Dragons 09-16 Cardiff Rugby
Ulster 26-19 Vodacom Bulls
