South Africa’s no-show in the quarter-finals of the European Cup competitions was not easy on the eye, but the United Rugby Champions points table paints a rosier picture — the Stormers, Lions, and Bulls are well-placed in the top eight, and the Sharks are knocking on the door.
Bulls stalwart Handre Pollard and Marcell Coetzee touched on the subject in a media conference ahead of their URC match against the Dragons on Friday night.
“It is disappointing,” said Pollard. “We all face our different challenges across a long season, and we are playing in two different competitions. It is tough for the SA teams, with quite a lot of travel. It is hard to go away from home up there (to Europe).
“Maybe we should have done better in the pool stages to give ourselves home playoff games, then we could have given ourselves a good shot.
“Having home-ground advantage in knock-out games is huge. But that was not the fate this season for any of the SA teams, but we can’t dwell on that now. We have to get straight back into the URC. It is the business end, and we have a lot of stuff to focus on now.”
With the four South African teams having clearly pinned their colours to the URC mast instead of the Champions and Challenge Cups, Coetzee said it is important to go deep into the URC.
There are four rounds to go before the top eight is finalised, and the more SA teams that can play themselves into hosting quarter-finals, the better.
“Every log point of every game has to count, even the Sharks (in tenth place) are still there,” Coetzee said.
“Speaking for the Bulls, we know what we want to achieve. We have two Welsh sides (away) and two Italian sides (at home), we will give every minute of every game our full focus, and see where we finish.”
