The Springbok coach sympathised with franchise coaches due to their difficult schedule, but said it produced battle-hardened players.
Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus was reluctant to criticise South African franchises and coaches for their struggles in European domestic rugby tournaments. Instead, he sympathised with the difficult schedule they faced and looked at the positives – how adversity and experience in different playing conditions breed a Test-level player.
Erasmus was speaking ahead of the Springboks’ first of two Tests against Italy at Loftus this Saturday, and on the back of a frustrating, if not awful, domestic season for South Africa’s four big franchises.
SA teams meet mixed success in URC
The Bulls were the most consistent and successful South African franchise in 2024/25, reaching the final of the United Rugby Championship after finishing second on the table with 14 wins. While underperforming in the final against Leinster, they had a good campaign in the build-up, dominating all opposition in the forward pack battle and making history on a memorable tour in Europe. It was their third defeat in a URC final.
Their EPCR campaign wasn’t great, crashing out of the Champions Cup group stage and only reaching the quarter-finals of the lower-tier Challenge Cup, but it was better than the other SA franchises.
The Sharks had their best URC to date, winning the SA shield for the first time and likewise reaching the semi-finals for the first time. But their EPCR campaign was poor. They also fell out of the Champions Cup group stage and lost their Challenge Cup last-16 match badly, though they were the defending champions.
The Stormers recovered from a sub-par start to finish fifth on the URC log. However, they had a poor quarter-final against Glasgow Warriors and crashed out there. It was disappointing after winning the inaugural URC title and finishing runners-up in 2023. They had such a poor Champions Cup group stage that they didn’t even qualify for the Challenge Cup.
The Lions finished 11th on the URC table and, for the fourth time, didn’t even reach the play-offs. They fell out of the Challenge Cup at the round of 16, a feat still better than the Cheetahs.
Erasmus would love to see an SA team win the URC
Erasmus said it would be a great feat for a South African franchise to win either the URC or Champions Cup, but it would be difficult.
“I think the Champions Cup at this stage, not that I want to talk [speak] for our coaches in the franchises, it’s a bit of a stretch for us now to compete really well in both competitions just because of the way the season works,” he said.
“We are playing Test match rugby in the southern hemisphere and we are playing franchise rugby in the northern hemisphere. It’s a very long season so it is tough. I think they will get used to that.
He said looking at the success and near-success of the Stormers and Bulls in the URC, South African teams were getting there. Plus, the fact that the Bulls, Sharks and Stormers all reached the play-offs.
“It’s small margins. It’s sad that we don’t win it, but we don’t know exactly what the coaches are coaching there, and we don’t tell them what to do, where players must play. So it’s tough for us to judge the player there.
“And we don’t go through what the franchise coach must go through, one week against [a French team], next week he is flying to Italy… But for us, it definitely grows the Test match level kind of player that gets used to Scottish, Irish, Italian players.”