It is about respect and not fear for South Africa’s best teams in Europe’s elite competitions, but there is every reason for South Africans to feel bullish.
The fear should come from those up north because a South African franchise will win the Champions Cup in the next three seasons, maybe even in the next two.
They will also always be in with a shout in the Challenge Cup.
The Champions Cup, known to South Africans over the years as the Heineken Cup, was recognised as the toughest challenge in world club rugby.
Only the best teams, based on the previous season’s league positions in France’s Top 14, England’s Premiership and Pro 12, the predecessor of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, made it to the Heineken Cup. The rest got to do battle in what is now known as the Challenge Cup.
The group stages, home and away, were always tough, but what made the Heineken Cup so difficult to win was that the teams had to balance qualifying for the play-offs while concurrently playing in their respective leagues and factoring in the Six Nations internationals.
The time gap between the start and finish of the respective competitions was long. Group form often turned to misery months later in the play-offs.
What South African teams will have to learn over the next few years is how to pace themselves in getting through a year of URC, Champions Cup/Challenge Cup and the Currie Cup.
Squad depth is going to be critical, as is the decision, sometimes made mid-season about which competition to prioritise.
It takes a very special group of players to win their premier domestic title and win the biggest European title.
With South Africa’s participation, it is no longer a European competition but an international club competition.
England’s charismatic Joe Marler plays for London-based Harlequins and he said it was bemusing to be travelling to Durban for a match played in a European competition.
It takes a very special group of players to win their premier domestic title and win the biggest European title
France captain and Toulouse’s inspirational talisman, Antoine Dupont, spoke of it being wrong to have South African teams in European competitions.
Both Marler and DuPont missed the point: It is no longer a European competition and South Africa’s five franchises have only enhanced the quality of the two respective competitions, especially when it comes to adding a physical flavour to counter the imposing French physicality.
This season will be one of lessons for the South African teams in the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup and Bulls coach Jake White, who coached in Europe, this weekend sent an experimental squad to Exeter that was unlikely to challenge the powerful English side.
White’s Bulls’ focus this month is on beating the champion URC DHL Stormers in Cape Town next Saturday.
Stormers coach John Dobson took a powerful squad to Clermont in France, where teams rarely win, and nearly came away with a win.
The Cheetahs won against Pau in France and on Friday evening the Sharks beat Bordeaux in France. The question is when does a coach concede a match on the road for the bigger picture of being able to win both competitions, for example the URC and Champions Cup.
The margins are fine, as Ireland’s Leinster showed last season. They were brilliant but stumbled in the Champions Cup final against La Rochelle and lost to the Bulls in the URC semifinal.
South Africa’s early introduction to the URC a year ago proved an opening month of misery but what followed was magical, with the Stormers winning the title.
The first few weeks of the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup have proved as magical for South African teams, and it is a case of not if but when a South African team can win these two competitions.
• Mark Keohane is the founder of keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the content director at Habari Media. Twitter: @mark_keohane
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