CHAMPIONS CUP: Dublin semi could impact URC but only one outcome is likely

The South African teams contending to be part of the sharp end of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship season might reckon correctly that Leinster’s result in Saturday’s Investec Champions Cup semifinal could impact their chances of silverware.

Although it is a double-edged sword, if Leinster exit from the premier European competition at this stage, it could help the Vodacom Bulls’ quest for a second-place finish on the URC log. The Bulls play their two remaining games in Pretoria against Welsh teams and will be expected to get full points.

That would leave everything hinging on the final game of the league phase of the season, which is the current second-placed team on the log, Glasgow Warriors, travelling to Dublin to face Leinster. Leinster are pretty much assured of pole position heading into the Finals Series in June, but Glasgow only lead the Bulls by a solitary point. Defeat would relegate them to third.

Why Leinster’s fate in the Champions Cup will have an impact on that Dublin URC season finale is because if they advance on Saturday they will be playing the European final in Cardiff a week after the Glasgow game. With Leinster that will almost certainly mean they go in with an understrength team in the URC game and while their second string did beat the Hollywoodbets Sharks recently, last weekend’s Scarlets win over them in Llanelli showed they aren’t invincible when they leave out their star players.

FINAL COULD IMPACT FOCUS IN URC PLAYOFFS

Playing in the Champions Cup final could also conceivably impact on how they go in the URC Finals Series, as it has over the past three years. They were suffering from the hangover from a narrow defeat in the Champions Cup final when the Bulls knocked them over in the Dublin semifinal in the inaugural URC season and they also had the Champions Cup in their minds when Munster beat them a year later.

Which is why any SA hopes of Leinster tripping up could be a double-edged sword. In the sense that a Northampton win would leave them with only the URC to play for. And it is hard to see them being stopped if they have that kind of motivation. It’s why the Sharks, who are the other team in the URC loaded with international players, should also have second thoughts about wanting Leinster to go out now.

But they may not be thinking about this at all, as, that old saying that anything can happen in sport aside, it just isn’t going to happen. Last season’s winners of the Gallagher Premiership have been in much better form this season in Europe than they have been in their bread and butter competition, but they won’t beat Leinster in Dublin.

CLASH OF FRENCH GIANTS HARD TO CALL

There’s no European club or provincial team who could, apart from perhaps one of the two French giants, reigning champions Toulouse and Bordeaux-Begles, who face off at the Matmut Olympique Stadium in Bordeaux on Sunday.

This is a much more difficult game to call than the one in Dublin, and it should be a lot closer too. Toulouse did the double by winning both the Champions Cup and Top 14 last year, but although Bordeaux are currently second to Toulouse on this season’s Top 14 log, they have been marginally better than Toulouse in the Champions Cup this year. Which is why they are playing this game in Bordeaux.

That home ground advantage could be significant in this potentially high-quality and closely fought clash between two teams that effectively field the entire France international team’s backline. Ever since Antoine Dupont’s injury, his absence has hogged the discourse around Toulouse, and there is no counter to the argument that he has been missed.
The degree to which he has been missed, though, is perhaps the pertinent question, and his childhood friend Paul Graou has done reasonably in his absence. A lot will depend on how he goes in the No 9 jersey on Sunday. Toulouse were pushed by Toulon in their quarterfinal and this game should be much harder for them. Sunday might just be the day that Toulouse’s dream of a back-to-back Champions Cup triumph to take their number of wins to seven dies.

PLENTY OF SA INTEREST IN EDINBURGH FACE-OFF

With the two EPCR Challenge Cup semifinals being played immediately prior to the two Champions Cup games, this is a weekend when SuperSport viewers can feast on the respective games.

There should certainly be plenty of South African interest in the face-off between two South African coaches, former Springbok and Bulls assistant coach Johann van Graan’s Bath and Edinburgh’s former Sharks coach Sean Everitt. Bath have been flying in the Premiership and the impression has been created that that is the competition Van Graan is prioritising, hence his team’s early exit from the Champions Cup.

But now that his team is so close to winning the Challenge Cup, Van Graan will no doubt be eyeing that potential extra bit of silverware, even though it pales in significance to the others, with a hungry eye.

And a hungry eye is certainly what Everitt should have as the past two weeks of URC action have set back his team’s challenge to qualify for the Champions Cup and like the Sharks last year, winning the Challenge Cup is an alternative route into the top competition.

Which is a point that should rouse the interest of the local teams playing for top-eight finishes in the URC, the DHL Stormers and the Emirates Lions. A Challenge Cup win will mean that, like last season when the Sharks won it, only seven teams will qualify for the Champions Cup and not eight.

Investec Cup semifinals

Leinster v Northampton Saints (Dublin, Saturday 6.30pm)

Bordeaux Begles v Toulouse (Bordeaux, Sunday 4pm)

EPCR Challenge Cup semifinals

Edinburgh v Bath (Edinburgh, Saturday 4pm)

Lyon v Racing 92 (Lyon, Sunday 1.30pm)