A round dominated in South Africa by the seismic derby between the Bulls and the Stormers at Loftus brought some significant shifts in the log situation as we start the countdown to the sharp end of the United Rugby Championship season.
OVERALL STATE OF THE NATION
Although there is only one local team in the top eight, it was a weekend that underlined the healthy position South African rugby finds itself in subsequent to the decision to switch to the URC from Super Rugby.
The crowd of just over 50 000 that turned up at Loftus to see a top quality game despite the conditions would have been unheard of in the last years of Super Rugby before the intervention of COVID and even the Lions/Sharks game in Johannesburg appeared to be played in front of a better crowd than that venue has hosted recently.
WEEKLY URC RECAP: LIONS AND BULLS DOMINATE
While the Stormers’ defeat in Pretoria saw them drop from fifth to ninth, which puts them currently outside of the Champions Cup qualification and URC playoff placings, the Bulls profited from their five point haul against their arch-rivals and the Glasgow Warriors’ failure to get a try scoring bonus point against Benetton to lift to second.
The Stormers shouldn’t feel too despondent about their fall to ninth – they are just four points, meaning one win, behind fourth-placed Edinburgh, incidentally also their next opponent. The game will be played in Cape Town, where John Dobson’s team boast a formidable record and have only been beaten by Munster (twice) and the Lions since they hosted their first match in the URC in December 2021.
Talking about the Lions, their bonus point win over the Sharks has put them strongly back in contention for a top eight finish. The Johannesburg team is on 29 points in 11th place, just one point behind the Stormers and three behind eighth-placed Benetton, who in the space of just two rounds have dropped six places.
That’s an indication of how close it is, and even a top four position is in sight for the Lions if they finish the season strongly for they are just five outside of the top four.
A top eight finish could introduce the prospect of a Gauteng derby in the quarter-final round, something that Jake White, coach of the high flying Bulls, would probably rather not countenance. But that’s all in the future, and the log table is so jammed up it is almost impossible to predict the outcome when the league phase of the season winds down in early June.
What we do know is that the Bulls have rebuilt Loftus Versfeld back into a fortress with their win over a Stormers team that won in Pretoria in their last two visits. White’s team are four behind Leinster, who they play in their second match in a two game mini-tour (their other opponents are the Dragons) at the end of the month.
The Bulls’ chances of finishing at least in the top two are excellent, for they have a sequence of home games at Loftus to come after their tour. With their home game against Edinburgh being followed by one against Ulster, both teams in the race for top four spots, the Stormers could be in the top four by Easter.
