The Hollywoodbets Sharks play two tough home Vodacom URC matches against Munster and Cardiff over the next fortnight that could decide how they approach their looming EPCR Challenge Cup commitments, starting with the round of 16 game against Connacht in Galway on the Easter weekend.
The Sharks won the Challenge Cup in 2024, beating Gloucester in the final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. However, the secondary EPCR competition is a long way behind the status of the main event, which is the Investec Champions Cup, and the Sharks showed that they knew that when they dropped from the Champions Cup into the Challenge Cup last season.
Whereas in 2023/2024 the Sharks needed to use the Challenge Cup to qualify for the Champions Cup because they were a long way off the top eight finish in the Vodacom URC that is the conventional way of getting to the top table in Europe, last year they didn’t.
By the time they dropped to the Challenge Cup they were comfortably in the URC top four, let alone the top eight, and consequently focused instead on their quest to win the URC and sent an understrength team to their round of 16 game.
The then Sharks coach John Plumtree’s reasoning was both that his team had already won the Challenge Cup and also that they didn’t need it this time. Their Champions Cup qualification was secure and the URC, the bread and butter competition for the Sharks, was the one they wanted to win.
The Sharks dropped last year after the group stages of the Champions Cup because they finished fifth in their pool, and it was the same this time around. This time though there is nothing secure about their URC position, and they currently list 11th on the log, six points, which means more than one win, behind the top eight position that would secure a place in next year’s more elite Champions Cup.
Plumtree of course has moved on, but the new Sharks coach JP Pietersen faces a quandary due to the situation his team finds itself in after the momentum gained in their quest for a good URC finish by their excellent wins over the Stormers were blown by two emphatic defeats to the Lions and the Bulls respectively.
Having to worry about Challenge Cup games, with the teams that drop from the Champions Cup usually slated to travel in the knock-out rounds, probably wouldn’t help the Sharks in their quest to come right in the URC. At the same time, however, if they lose one of their remaining six URC league games, winning the Challenge Cup like they did in 2024 might again be their only route to Champions Cup qualification.
If his team drops one or both of the games against Munster, which will be played at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Saturday, or Cardiff the following week, Pietersen will be left with no choice as a top eight finish in the URC will then have become a long shot.
It is understood that Eben Etzebeth will be back and available after serving his suspension for the eye-gouging incident in the final Springbok test match of last year in Cardiff by the time the Sharks get to Galway. If he is selected for that game it might give an indication of his new coach’s intentions in a competition that Etzebeth did enjoy winning two years ago.
Although sometimes because of the logistical challenges South African teams sometimes give the impression they sacrifice away games in the Champions Cup, qualification for the elite competition is important because it has financial implications.
The Challenge Cup is very much the secondary European competition and the Sharks will draw far more for Champions Cup games in Durban against the likes of Toulouse, Bordeaux Begles or Bath than they would for one of the Challenge Cup teams like Zebre, the Welsh clubs or one of the stragglers in the French Top 14 or the English Gallagher Premiership.
The Sharks have also never been shy about making winning the Champions Cup one of their ultimate aims, which will be hard for them to do if they don't gain the experience of being regular contenders in the knock-outs and are only playing in the elite EPCR competition every second season.