South Africa’s presence in the EPCR Challenge Cup competition may be over, but all eyes will now fall on two coaches who can lead their respective teams to cup glory.
While Jake White lamented his side’s poor first half as they left their fightback too late to defeat Edinburgh, Sean Everitt, one-time assistant to White and former Sharks coach, will have the opportunity to give Scotland their last remaining chance for Cup glory after Glasgow exited the Investec Champions Cup on Friday night.
Everitt’s Edinburgh will face off against English side Bath - the current Premiership leaders and Premiership Cup winners - who are coached by former Springbok assistant coach Johann van Graan in a much-anticipated semifinal which will have a lot of South African interest in it.
Bath’s nine-try 61-26 demolition of fellow English side Gloucester underlined their hunger for silverware this season as they look to add the Challenge Cup to their Premiership Cup they already won earlier this season.
Van Graan has transformed the club from bottom of the Premiership to runaway leaders in a short amount of time, and the showdown with Everitt will be a keen one to watch.
Edinburgh’s win over the Bulls was marked by a stunning first half display which caught the South African side flat-footed, and which was enough in the end to give Everitt a narrow win after an epic fightback.
FULL TIME 🐂
— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) April 12, 2025
What a fight till the end 🔥@ChallengeCup_ | @Vodacom #ChallengeAccepted pic.twitter.com/IXCot3YhWj
White lamented afterwards about the bad start, but the Bulls, with six Springboks on their bench, made the most of the second half as they fought back from 31-7 down to end up just six points adrift and lose 34-28.
The sight of former Bulls prop Pierre Schoeman winning the crucial turnover penalty at the end to secure victory for his side was not lost on White either.
But the Bulls coach had no excuses as his side started poorly and then gave themselves a mountain to climb to secure the victory.
“This one hurts more than any other game because you are out of the competition,” White said afterwards. “It was disappointing because I genuinely thought that especially with the bench we had, it was almost like we ran out of time. If we played for five more minutes I have no doubt we would have ended up winning that game.”
White said the big difference was a yellow card to Zak Burger, who left the field for a costly 10 minutes in the first half.
“You can’t play against an international team with the calibre of players they have with 14 men,” White said. “During that period, we conceded 21 points. Once you are 7-24 down, it makes it very difficult. But I am still very proud. At 7-31, it could have easily been worse.
“We’ve seen how a lot of teams at the back end of this competition have blown other teams away. And to literally get turned over in the last play of the game in the [opposition] 22 [metre area] is obviously something I’m really happy about. But I just stress that I’m obviously very disappointed because we came here with a group that I thought would be good enough to beat Edinburgh.”
The other teams from the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in the Challenge Cup also bowed out as Lyon won a tense clash against Ospreys 20-18 in Swansea despite a late try by George McGuigan.
Racing 92 ended Irish side Connacht’s run with a close 43-40 win, another game which saw a late fightback as Connacht scored twice in the last 10 minutes, but it wasn’t enough to get them through.
