Leinster’s hard fought win over Munster in an Irish derby played with fierce, test match type intensity has ensured that the DHL Stormers will retain their top position on the Vodacom URC log heading into the New Year round of derbies.
The Stormers, with seven wins in seven starts in the competition this season, lead Munster by two points, and they have a game in hand on the team that succeeded them as URC champions in the second season of the competition. That may change before the Stormers kick off their eagerly anticipated north/south derby against the Vodacom Bulls in Cape Town on Saturday because Munster are playing Ulster in another Irish derby on Friday night.
But at least by then the Stormers will have the luxury of knowing they have two games in hand on any team ahead of them on the log, although a Munster win away in Belfast will ratchet up their own need to edge out the Bulls in what is always a hotly contested derby game. The Hollywoodbets Sharks will host the Lions in another South African derby earlier the same afternoon making it a New Year URC double header.
The local sides postponed the scheduled Christmas URC derbies, which although the crowd at Centurion for the Betway SA20 cricket match between Pretoria Capitals and Joburg Super Kings countered the argument that there is no-one left on the highveld in the holiday season, was the right decision. The Bulls would have hosted the Stormers and the Lions the Sharks on the same day as the cricket.
It means the SA sides are now a game in hand on the other teams, and that will only be levelled out when the postponed derbies get played in Johannesburg and Pretoria respectively in March. For John Dobson’s Stormers, the challenge now is to do well enough in the derbies, which after the Bulls game includes a two consecutive Saturday home and away clash with the Sharks at the end of January, to still be ahead when this phase of the competition is over.
Derbies do tend to throw up some odd results, although this past weekend there were only a few exceptions when it came to what would have been expected. Those were the away win scored by Ospreys over what had looked like a resurgent Scarlets and arguably the 18 winning margin for Glasgow away in Edinburgh.
Glasgow have won the last four 1872 Cups, which bizarrely considering it is within a competition is determined by aggregate score across the two matches. They won this one 45-15, but what was different was that this time Glasgow won both games. In the past three seasons they won on aggregate, but lost in Edinburgh. So winning in Edinburgh saw them cross a frontier they hadn’t crossed in some time.
They did it with some comfort too, which will increase the growing pressure on Edinburgh’s former Sharks coach Sean Everitt, who together with fellow South African Scott Mathie, his attack coach, have been accused of not maximising the talents of the Scottish wings Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham.
Not that the conditions in either game were really conducive to great attacking rugby, and even the usual all court Warriors approach wasn’t in much evidence in two games that the Scottish fans generally appeared to feel didn’t match the hype.
Glasgow’s two wins over the Christmas period have though lifted them to 29 points, three behind the Stormers (again the caveat being that the Cape side has a game in hand), and are currently holding down fourth position.
Ulster, who came from a 10 point deficit to win by five points in Galway, are fifth, two points behind Glasgow, but they also have a game in hand on the other teams because they had a game postponed when Storm Amy hit Europe back in October.
Cardiff managed to win at home against the Dragons but although that was good enough to keep them in third, having slipped from second the previous week, the narrowness of their win over Dragons, who did shock Connacht in the previous game, does suggest the Welsh team are starting to lose a bit of their impressive early momentum.
EIGHTH ROUND URC RESULTS
Cardiff 22 Dragons 19
Scarlets 19 Ospreys 26
Zebre 23 Zebre 37
Edinburgh 3 Glasgow Warriors 21
Connacht 24 Ulster 29
Munster 8 Leinster 13
Next weekend’s fixtures (from Thursday, New Year’s Day)
Dragons v Scarlets (Newport, Thursday 17.00)
Ospreys v Cardiff (Swansea, Thursday 19.30)
Ulster v Munster (Belfast, Friday 21.45)
Hollywoodbets Sharks v Lions (Durban, Saturday 15.30)
DHL Stormers v Vodacom Bulls (Cape Town, Saturday 18.00)
Benetton v Edinburgh (Treviso, Saturday 19.30)
Leinster v Connacht (Dublin, Saturday 19.30)
Glasgow Warriors v Zebre (Glasgow, 21.45)
URC log: 1. Stormers 32 points after 7 games, 2. Munster 30 points after 8 games, 3. Cardiff 30 after 8 games, 4. Glasgow Warriors 29 after 8 games, 5. Ulster 27 after 7 games, 6. Leinster 25 after 8 games, 7. Benetton 18 after 8, 8. Lions 17 after 7, 9. Connacht 16 after 7, 10. Bulls 15 after 7, 11. Edinburgh 13 after 7, 12. Ospreys 13 after 8, 13. Sharks 12 after 7, 14. Zebre 11 after 8, 15. Dragons 11 after 8, 16. Scarlets 9 after 7.