URC PREVIEW: Ulster hold the key for the Bulls

With the Hollywoodbets Sharks appearing to have spent the week celebrating and recovering from their efforts in another competition the key to the Vodacom Bulls’ chances of topping the Vodacom United Rugby Championship log are in the hands of Ulster.

A fully motivated and prepared Sharks team, with all their Springboks in tow, would have turned the final league game of the season to be played on South African soil into a 50/50 game. We will have to wait until the Sharks team is announced later on Friday before we know for sure, for any team with Eben Etzebeth and captained by Etzebeth will surely want to do all it can to win, but the indications out of Durban are that the focus has been deflected this week. And that can’t happen in a buildup to a Bulls game if you want to beat them.

While it would have been good for the competition for the Durbanites to hold off their celebrations for a week and try and confirm their improvement by beating a team a level above anything they faced on the road to their Challenge Cup success, Sharks coach John Plumtree does have a point when he points to what the quest for Champions Cup status would have taken out of his men.

He did rest players in the URC games, which was why they were thumped by Cardiff in their last home game, but travel takes a lot out of you. And the Sharks have not only spent four of the last six weeks overseas, they’ve also flown there and back twice.

PRETORIA TEAM OVERWHELMING FAVOURITES

The upshot is that the Bulls will start as overwhelming favourites to do what they need to do to maintain their challenge for the top spot on the log that would give them a great chance of joining the DHL Stormers as winners of the URC trophy. Top spot means you play all your playoff games at home, and at Loftus not even Leinster would be confident of a win.

But winning in Durban is not all it will take for the Bulls, they also need to bank on Ulster retaining the form and momentum they picked up last time out when they beat Leinster in Belfast. That was an inspired performance from the Ulster team and a repeat of that will surely put them in the frame to upset their arch-rivals Munster, even thought the game is being played away in Limerick.

Munster just need to win to be sure of top spot so there will be no prizes for guessing who the Bulls will be supporting in the game that kicks off immediately after the one in Durban finishes. Provided of course the Bulls do do the necessary, and they should probably try for a bonus point too, just to keep the third and fourth placed Leinster and Glasgow Warriors respectively out of the permutations.

All the top four teams have 12 wins so points differential will come into play if there is a tie, which will happen if the Bulls pick up four points in Durban but the Warriors, which they certainly will do against Zebre on Friday night, pick up five and Leinster do the same. The Bulls are probably beyond the reach of Glasgow because they have a points differential advantage of 40 points on them, but the advantage on Leinster is closer.

SA NEUTRALS HOPING FOR LIONS WIN

It certainly is going to be an absorbing final round of league play, with a lot of the South African focus on the lunch time kick-off game in Cape Town between the DHL Stormers and the Emirates Lions. Etzebeth has said that he hopes his former teammates do the Lions a favour, and in doing so he is probably echoing the sentiments of most neutral South Africans.

Having the Lions join the Bulls, Stormers and Sharks in next year’s Champions Cup would certainly be a big coup for South African rugby, with Etzebeth referring to that competition as “the World Cup of club rugby”.

But Etzebeth knows that no team plays to lose, and with momentum with them at the moment, the Stormers will want to take that into the playoffs by continuing the winning run that started with their comprehensive win over Leinster the week after their unexpected loss to the Ospreys.

That result certainly hurt the Stormers, as they would be playing for a top four spot had they got the win that was expected. But there again, this has been such a competitive year in the URC that all teams can point to games where with just a bit of rub of the green they might have got a different result and been in a very different position now.

A SEASON OF MIGHT HAVE BEENS FOR EVERYONE

The Lions are certainly one of those, for their game against the Bulls was there to be won late in that game when they missed a penalty. Counter-balancing that though was the missed Boeta Chamberlain kick that helped them to win at Hollywoodbets Kings Park before that. The Bulls were also arguably unlucky to lose to Munster in a game where a red card influenced the result.

The Stormers will look back on Joseph Dweba diving over for what he thought was a winning try against Benetton in Treviso back in November only to discover he was diving over the wrong line, with the right line being five metres further upfield. The Sharks had several narrow losses earlier in the competition that might have kept them in the URC fight, the losses to Connacht and the Lions readily springing to mind, and they came close in Cape Town too.

That though is the beauty of sport, and the beauty of the URC. The message to all teams looking ahead to next season is that while it is a long competition, consistency in results is key and you can’t afford to lose focus at any time.

Top 10 positions going into final round

Munster 63 points (12 wins - points diff +160), Vodacom Bulls 61 points (12 wins - points diff +194), Leinster 60 points (12 wins - points diff +178), Glasgow Warriors 60 points (12 wins - points diff +154), DHL Stormers 54 points (11 wins - points diff +115), Ulster 53 points (11 wins - points diff +33), Edinburgh 49 points (11 wins - points diff +44), Benetton 49 points (10 wins - points diff - 14), Emirates Lions 49 points (9 wins - points diff +133), Connacht 45 points (9 wins - points diff - 2).

Final round previews and predictions

Leinster v Connacht (Dublin, Friday 20.35)


Connacht still have a glimmer of hope and will be seventh at the end of the night if they pick up five log points from this fixture. They will though have to depend on Leinster falling victim to a post Champions Cup final defeat hangover, and you have to assume the Dublin side has learned from past mistakes. They should have too much for an opposing team that, to be fair, probably conceded that their race was done when they lost to the Stormers.

Prediction: Leinster to win by 12

Glasgow Warriors v Zebre (Glasgow, Friday 20.35)

Glasgow will be looking to fill their boots with tries and points as points differential could come into play if they end up tied with one of the other top four teams in what could even be a count out for pole position. They were horrible against the Lions but shouldn’t be challenged by Zebre as they look to go into the Finals Series with confidence regained.

Prediction: Glasgow to win by 40

DHL Stormers v Emirates Lions (Cape Town, Saturday 13.45)

Will there even be Stormers fans hoping for the Lions win that will make it four SA teams in next season’s Champions Cup? Probably not. But that potential outcome - remember the Lions don’t make it into the Champions Cup if they finish eighth - does at least take some of the pressure off for those supporters who gnaw their nails. Saying there is nothing at stake for the Stormers is also wrong - they will want to finish fifth, and not lower down, after the standards they have set for themselves in the first three seasons of this competition. Rain is predicted again after for a while on Thursday the outlook had improved. Hopefully the rain, given as a 60 per cent chance on my weather app, doesn’t prove correct for if it is a dry day, this could be one of the most spectacular matches of the season.

Prediction: Stormers to win by 8

Benetton v Edinburgh (Treviso, Saturday 14.00)

This is an effective knock-out game as the winner will surely proceed into the playoffs while the loser will probably drop out of the top eight. At home you have to favour Benetton.

Prediction: Benetton to win by 7

Scarlets v Dragons (Llanelli, Saturday 16.00)

Phew, this is one of the few dead rubbers game of the final weekend, which is a testament to how competitive and watchable this edition of the URC has been. Not that a Welsh derby is ever a dead rubber, there are boasting rights at stake.

Prediction: Scarlets to win by 15

Hollywoodbets Sharks v Vodacom Bulls (Durban, Saturday 16.10)

We won’t know until the Sharks team has been announced whether the talk of them being under-prepared and distracted is actually just a smokescreen and the Bulls walk into an ambush. The Sharks certainly should feel they owe the Bulls one, for their defeat at Loftus was the one proper hiding suffered by them this season (at least during the period they were still taking the URC seriously). Hollywoodbets Kings Park hasn’t always been a happy hunting ground for the Bulls, but even if the Sharks do pitch, Jake White’s men have too much to play for against a side that can’t progress out of the cellars of the URC log for them not to be favourites.

Prediction: Bulls to win by 10

Munster v Ulster (Limerick, Saturday 18.15)

Munster have certainly made a good fist of their season as champions. Last season they had to do it the hard way, winning all their playoff games on the road, and surmounting a particularly stiff challenge in winning the final in Cape Town. This time they have a chance of doing it the other way around, with all the playoff games at home. That is though provided they beat Ulster, who arrive with some form after their win over Leinster a fortnight ago.

Prediction: Munster to win by 7


Cardiff v Ospreys (Cardiff, Saturday 18.30)

This is the other dead rubber game, again a Welsh derby, but between two teams that have won recently in South Africa and are the best Welsh teams in the competition by some distance. The Ospreys would definitely be favoured if they were playing at home in Swansea, but in Cardiff it is 50/50.

Prediction: Ospreys to squeak it.