This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with robots, ruffians and Rob Baxter’s challenge…
Europe’s awkward place
“…We’ve got to look after these athletes. They are not robots. They don’t front up every week. And right now, the South African boys are treated like robots,” said John Plumtree after the Sharks were handed a 50-pointer at Welford Road.
South Africa’s place in Europe was always likely to be more precarious than their place in the United Rugby Championship. While the latter includes longer tour windows that can be carefully planned, the former continues to pitch up ugly one-week tours for both South African and European teams, severely distorting preparation. As Plumtree continued: “…Why are we sending a team up here for one week? We arrive on Wednesday and play on Saturday. It’s hardly high performance.”
South Africa’s general levels in Europe have hardly been high performance this year. One win from six for their participating teams includes two home defeats and three away defeats, two of which featured margins approaching 40 points. Injuries have cut a notable swathe through the international players who have been playing almost non-stop since January. “It’s not a good look,” said Stormers coach John Dobson.
It should be noted that the door swings both ways, but as yet, the European teams have not opted to plan for an L on an away weekend in South Africa in the same way that Plumtree and his Sharks clearly did at Leicester. Not yet anyway. Northampton and Toulon scored excellent wins, Exeter fared less well, but then the Chiefs are generally faring less well at the moment – more on that later. All took close to full-strength teams. But then they all need to travel a maximum of once down under. One-offs are easier to plan for.
Plumtree’s counterpart on Saturday, Michael Cheika, was not sympathetic. “This is the European Cup. It’s the pinnacle tournament in European footy. The idea is to do your best, and go out there and win it against the best teams,” he said, but added at the end of his comment: “Inside of the organisation, you look after your blokes,” which rather ran counter to his previous argument since Plumtree, by resting some tired players, was doing exactly that.
Either way, there’s a problem, despite the teams’ love of European competition. As Dobson pointed out, “It’s like being invited to someone’s birthday party then complaining about the chips. We are so grateful to be here. This competition is probably what has helped us so much in World Cups. Every breakdown is a competition. Every scrum is a 20-second contest. Every line-out or maul is a contest. That has been a massive boost for South African rugby.”
The crucial question is whether the presence of the South African teams has given the same boost to the tournament. Leicester and Harlequins fans would likely be screaming ‘NO’ after the anti-climaxes they witnessed at the weekend, but find a Northampton Saint who is not basking in the glow of both the achievement and the experience of going to Loftus and burgling a win.
Perhaps more instructive of it all was Dobson’s assessment of Toulon’s trip to Gqeberha to play the Stormers last week: “We played a Champions Cup game in a beautiful city and I didn’t speak to one Frenchman. How is it possible that guys can come from another continent and we don’t even say hello to them? It’s really odd but it’s across the board now.”
“Maybe because of our presence it’s (the Champions Cup) a bit unwieldy at the moment. People are a bit confused by it and it’s certainly not what it was – to my mind as an outsider – a couple of years ago. That’s what I worry about: if it becomes really vanilla with teams just going through the motions.”
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But teams are doing that. Both the Stormers and the Sharks this weekend past, and you can bet the house that there’ll be a sprinkling of European teams joining them in January as the qualification permutations become matters of choice or resignation.
‘Unwieldy’ was an appropriate word. You’ve got a competition featuring big travel asks in small windows, featuring pools in which not all the teams play each other, where you can win one game from four and still qualify for the next round, the fixtures splattered around the annual calendar like ink blots from a leaky pen, in which teams can target games for acceptable losses, but which markets itself, and which many coaches still believe, as the pinnacle of club rugby. Right now, it doesn’t feel like it.
Problems in Paris
It’s a little difficult to conclude that there are not some serious problems beneath the surface at Stade Francais. One red card against Munster last week was coincidence. The second was extremely careless. But the third this week? Sheer lunacy.
The promise of last season, in which the Parisians finished second in the overall Top 14 table before a disappointing semi-final defeat to Bordeaux, has not been built on; the team currently sits in 12th with discipline an ongoing problem, while the European campaign is all but over, sinking among a flurry of swinging arms, trips and cards.
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The rise and fall of Exeter
Exeter Chiefs’ ascent to the pinnacle of English and European rugby was perhaps THE story of the professional era. The club was the only one in English rugby to post a profit in 2019, the year before the pandemic wrecked the finances but also the year before the Chiefs saw off both Racing 92 and Wasps to claim the double, ten years on from promotion.
Not five years on from that, the team is winless in nine matches in all competitions (Premiership Rugby Cup excluded), up for sale and not looking as though it is about to turn it all around. Toulouse can rack up 60 against many teams, but they won’t have often had it as easy as they did on Sunday.
Rob Baxter has been in charge of the team since the promotion season. He has overseen, or at least played a part in, pretty much every positive development at the club, as well as becoming one of the game’s steadiest and most influential voices.
But this season has looked awry, not in the same way that it looks awry at Stade Francais, but in a strange, inexplicably error-ridden sort of way. Tackles missed. Muddled attacking shapes. Defensive mis-reads. Defeats snatched from the jaws of victory. All the sorts of things that Exeter never used to be noted for.
The challenge facing Baxter now is huge, as morale continues to ebb and uncertainty washes over the club. Upcoming matches at Sale and at home to Gloucester will be tense enough, while the visits of Newcastle and Bath around Easter may be critical to the club’s longer-term future.
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/loose-pass-south-africans-being-treated-like-robots-and-the-champions-cups-sheer-lunacy
