When the South African Super Rugby franchises entered the United Rugby Championship (URC) in 2021, the majority view was that they would raise standards and heighten interest in the competition among the Celtic nations and Italy. As events have transpired, within four seasons there has arguably been a greater buy-in from South Africa than elsewhere, Ireland included.
As if to confirm the point, Bulls coach Jake White says winning a URC title by beating Leinster in Saturday’s Grand Final at Croke Park (kick-off 5pm) would be the equal of any of the team’s previous triumphs.
Bear in mind the Bulls were the most successful South African franchise in the history of Super Rugby, with three titles in 2007, ’09 and ’10. “It would be exactly the same,” asserted White – a World Cup-winning coach with South Africa – without any hesitancy.
“In South Africa, winning is what every franchise wants to do and I’m not talking from a standard point of view,” he said. “People have had this debate about whether southern hemisphere and Super Rugby are anything like URC rugby. I just think the achievement of winning something when you’ve spent as many weeks as any team has in preparing for a game like this becomes as important as any other competition.
“Super Rugby is much shorter. This is a long, drawn-out competition with EPCR and everything thrown in between, so my answer is very simple. Having coached in Super Rugby – I wasn’t lucky enough to win it, but we did play in a final when I was at the Brumbies − it’s as big as any player playing in any tournament to win silverware at the end,” said White after the team’s Thursday training run in Croke Park.
I mean, let’s be fair, we’re playing Ireland on Saturday
— Jake White
The full houses for URC games in South Africa are in sharp contrast to the increasingly hard sell of Leinster’s six end-of-season knockout games at the Aviva Stadium. There are mitigating factors and the estimated crowd of 35,000-plus for this final would have looked fuller and sounded louder in the Aviva. However, the final would have been a 51,000 sell-out had it been in Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria.
White believes the South African buy-in is still an ongoing process but that the same was true when their sides joined Super Rugby.
“They didn’t understand it. They didn’t know who the guys from Waikato were and the guys from Otago and then, as time went on, they got a better feel for how Super Rugby worked.
“And in the URC I would still be honest and say they’re still not sure how it all fits,” he added, citing segues into the Champions Cup as confusing for South African fans.
“But I think they now realise it’s actually a phenomenal tournament and you’re seeing the best players in the world. It’s no different from what happened when Super Rugby started to take off. They realised you could see Christian Cullen playing for the Hurricanes and Jonah Lomu playing for Auckland.”
In a sense, this is all a backhanded compliment to Leinster and Irish rugby, and the heightened rivalry between the two countries in recent years.
“I mean, let’s be fair, we’re playing Ireland on Saturday,” ventured White, reworking a dog-eared script. “They just happen to have a different colour jersey on Saturday, but we’re playing Ireland and that’s probably why South Africa have tuned in, because they know these players as Irish internationals.
[ Six of the best games between Leinster and Bulls ahead of URC finalOpens in new window ]
“I’ve got some messages from back home, people are supporting the Bulls. People in Cape Town are supporting the Bulls. People in Durban are supporting the Bulls and think about it, that’s like Munster supporting Leinster against the Bulls.
“That’s just what happens when rugby fever is high. But they’ve bought into it and it’s no different from how it happened in Super Rugby. It’s still not there, I must stress.
“But I think it’s definitely going to happen over time and we need to win this tournament because it’s going to help our public take it even more seriously.”
If the Bulls were to atone for two lost finals by beating Leinster, it would add yet another title to White’s CV, beginning with an Under-21 World Cup in 2002 when, as he noted, Leo Cullen was captaining their Irish counterparts.
As well as leading the Springboks to the 2004 Tri Nations and 2007 World Cup, White took the Brumbies to the Super Rugby final in 2013 and the Sharks to the 2014 semi-final. At Montpellier, he guided the team to a 2016 Challenge Cup success and the 2017 Top 14 semi-finals. Then he brought the Bulls to the 2021 Currie Cup title. This is the Bulls’ third URC final in four seasons.
“I just enjoy it to be honest,” he said after making one enforced change to the Bulls line-up, with Marco van Staden replacing the injured flanker Cameron Hanekom, Marcell Coetzee shifting to number eight and Nizaam Carr being added to the bench.
“When I started coaching you had a bag of balls and a whistle and you knew everything, from goalkicking to throwing in the lineout to tackling. Imagine those days? Now if I tell a player how to jump in a lineout, all he does is google ‘jumping locks’ and he’s got more information than I can give him. And if I say ‘breakdown’ he watches Richie McCaw and he tells me it doesn’t work like that.
“So, it’s still intriguing for me because I’m learning every day.”
