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Robbie Fleck: Key to South African Champions Cup success rests with Rassie
By Jon Newcombe
South African franchises are conspicuous by their absence in the knockout stages of the Investec Champions Cup. The Sharks and Bulls dropped into the second-tier EPCR Challenge Cup to join the Lions, and the Stormers are out of the equation on both counts.
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Between them, the three Champions Cup teams only won three of their 12 pool games, slim pickings for squads oozing with quality.
In the three seasons South African teams have competed in the Champions Cup, not one has made it beyond the quarter-finals. However, the Sharks are the current holders of the Challenge Cup after a 36-22 win over Gloucester in last year’s final. For that success to be replicated in the most prestigious competition, Robbie Fleck says Springboks must be consistently made available for selection.
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The Bulls suffered a 59-22 hiding at the hands of Northampton in last year’s quarter-final as a result of Jake White’s decision to prioritise a push for the URC playoffs, and Fleck believes there need to be directives from above to prevent this happening again.
Discussing the issue at length on the latest episode of RPTV’s Boks Office, the former Springbok centre said: “It is the best competition in the world. I would think that is the competition that all players would like to play in, all coaches would like to coach in, and the competition all fans would love to watch. There is so much history.
“But it would have to take a decision from Rassie (Erasmus) and all the powers that be to say, ‘let’s collectively decide to have a proper crack at it, and to do that we need to rest Springboks at certain points in the season. It needs to be a South African rugby decision.”
Fleck played in the competition during his days at Bath, while fellow Boks Office guest Schalk Burger is a two-time winner from his days at Saracens.
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He chipped in by saying there needs to be a mindset change around the importance of the Champions Cup.
“If you go to Toulouse, or you go to Clermont, or you go to La Rochelle now, or you go to Saracens, when I was there, and Leinster, they have got the ability to separate the two competitions, it is just not another week, it’s a European week, it’s the biggest thing we play for, it’s the Investec Champions Cup, and that mindset is similar to Real Madrid in football.
“They pitch up in European rugby and play at a different level than they would play at the week before, and I think our South African sides will have to embrace that and find a way to compete against the best in Europe, which I think we definitely can once everyone is playing.
“If you think of the Sharks, and they’ve got all of their 16 Springboks available, they can pitch up and beat any side, but unfortunately for us, we are not there yet.
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“The competition would go to a different stratosphere if we were all invested in it. At the moment, because we’re not that successful, the South African public has been quite slow on the uptake. If we compete, you’ll see the likes of Antoine Dupont coming to Durban, coming to Cape Town, to play rugby. The chances of seeing him do that for France are way slimmer than doing it for his club.”
The topic of squad rotation has been brought to the fore by Burger’s former club, Saracens, and their decision to rest their England stars for Saturday’s Round of 16 trip to Toulon rather than in either of the two Premiership games that followed the Six Nations.
“It is probably just the reality that they don’t have the squad that they once had,” said Burger.
“Not taking their best squad is unheard of in that part of the world.”
Fleck was much more damning in his assessment. He said: “I don’t understand it. They’ve won it three times; surely, they have got to honour that and respect the competition? I think it is hugely disappointing.”
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Not sure I understand. Its not obvious how you prioritize URC, Champions/Challenge Cup, Internationals, and rest. And if you add player development plans (eg experience of positions, playing conditions, game plans, opponents playing styles etc) it becomes harder. Additionally, consistency of selection helps with making adjustments to systems and tactics, so that further constrains your options. Travel challenges don’t make it easier.
Jake White has effectively decided that he would rather have a chance of success in one competition, at the expense of the other competition, than a near certainty of heroic failure in both. And he has implied that over time he plans to build enough depth to give the Bulls a chance in both the URC and Champions Cup simultaneously.
Not sure what is being proposed here that is supposedly a better plan.
Yeah, I don’t really get it either.
The teams will need to be more competitive at some stage as I’m sure it won’t be cost effective before long. It’s a lot of money and resources they have to pump into it just to field teams, let alone compete.
Even with the Boks only focus being on RWC’s, the euro comps would be a great way to develop test players in the first 1-3 years of a RWC cycle.