CURRIE CUP WRAP: Return of URC players brought some perspective

The Carling Currie Cup season that will conclude over the next fortnight has brought tremendous excitement and some nail-biting games but the final round of league play would have provided a message to anyone who was hyping it on the quality of the participants.

While the Sanlam Boland Kavaliers, Suzuki Griquas and the Toyota Cheetahs will fly the flag of the smaller unions in the semifinal phase, with the ADT Fidelity Lions the only Vodacom United Rugby Championship aligned union to make it, the impact of the return of URC players to the other teams brought some shuddering perspective.

In the end the Bulls, who had lost every game since they switched away from their policy of going all out for Cup success by picking players who could be used in the URC, only just beat the Cheetahs on the scoreboard at Loftus. But in reality they were comprehensive victors because the late Cheetahs fightback came when the game had already been won and lost and the Bulls were down to 14 men due to the red card shown to Marcell Coetzee.

DHL Western Province ended the competition stone last, and by some distance, but when they had their URC players back at the weekend they were way too good for their plucky neighbours from the Boland, who were considered the achievers of this year's competition, in the Western Cape derby. The Lions, who have been on a URC footing for longer than the other teams, were way too good for Griquas and the Sharks only needed a clutch of URC players to be too good for the Airlink Pumas.

There’s been some criticism of the bigger unions for bringing in URC players but unless they wanted to go to the expense of organising separate warmup games, the way they have done it was the way to do it. The Stormers and Boland used to play each other in a pre-season friendly anyway back in the days of Super Rugby, so you could say the timing of that game was perfect.

And the Sharks and the Stormers both only have one specific URC focused warm-up game to play after this, with the two teams heading to George for a repeat of the game they played in the Garden Route city two years ago. It is not the URC aligned unions at fault for the distortion in the final round that undermined the competition, but the scheduling. If the Currie Cup was played at a tme when it ran parallel to the URC, situations like this last weekend would not emerge and the competition would also be of superior qualities with stronger teams.

If there is a question it is over the length of the window some URC players were given in the Lions side. It is clear that the Lions are desperate to make up for last year’s narrow defeat to the Sharks in the final and they will be clear favourites to do just that - but it may also come at a cost in the URC, like it did last year when after a promising start they ran out steam later in the season.

That the Sharks realised where the Currie Cup belongs in the order of priority, and they do believe it cost them having to play a Currie Cup final a week before they started their URC campaign in Connacht, became clear with their attitude this season. They achieved a development triumph through Nick Hatton’s fast improving young side, but one thing the URC coach John Plumtree definitely didn’t want was any commitment to a semifinal or final in the domestic competition for his URC players.

The game against the Pumas, with other players playing the curtain-raiser against what proved a strong young Saracens side, was enough for Plumtree. After Friday night’s game in George he has two weeks to the first URC game in Glasgow, which is as it should be.

Still, while the URC players had to play the final round, it does appear a shame that the Pumas were knocked out of the competition and most neutrals would have hoped for Griquas, Boland, Cheetahs and the Pumas to make the semifinals rather than have a URC team win it, in which case you have to question the point of it all.

The Currie Cup these days is for the smaller unions, and at the weekend we saw what we knew already - while they all have the potential to grow, and they will provide a useful reservoir of talent to the more depth challenged URC franchises in the coming months, they are still a long way behind the major unions.

Final round Carling Currie Cup results

Hollywoodbets Sharks XV 19 Airlink Pumas 14

DHL Western Province 40 Sanlam Boland Kavaliers 22

Fidelity ADT Lions 37 Suzuki Griquas 7

Vodacom Bulls 35 Toyota Cheetahs 31

Carling Currie Cup semi-finals (both Saturday, 13 September)

ADT Fidelity Golden Lions v Sanlam Boland Kavaliers (Johannesburg, 14.00)

Suzuki Griquas v Toyota Cheetahs (Kimberley, 16.00)