MARK KEOHANE | It’s not over yet: SA rugby players show why they’re winners, not whiners

Gone are the days when the Springboks November tour of the northern hemisphere was the last South African rugby of the year. Now December is among the most challenging for South African players in a schedule that has no summer break.

No sooner had the Boks got off the plane from an unbeaten three-Test tour up north than they were into club action with their respective franchises, in South Africa and abroad.

The landscape is very different now for a South African player based in Europe, the UK, or South Africa. There may be a kind of reprieve for current Test players because of a national rest policy and squad rotation, but for the coaches and those not in the immediate Bok set-up it really is a case of rugby being their all-year day job.

You won’t get complaints from the coaches or the players and my experience is they will tell you they play and coach by choice, but it also needs reminding that they are not machines.

December is a celebrated month of festivities and rugby and when it comes to the latter the players do it tough. Mentally, the resolve has to be pretty hardened to get through four matches in four weekends in two different competitions that require very different approaches.

It is exhausting writing the schedule, so imagine how draining it will be for those playing it.

The Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup commence this weekend with the Bulls, Sharks and Stormers battling for superiority in the former and the Cheetahs and Lions among the title hopefuls in the latter.

All available current Springboks are playing, with the Bulls and Sharks the biggest beneficiaries on this opening weekend of what has always been considered Europe’s premier knockout competition. Add in the South African challenge and it is comfortably now the most demanding global club knockout competition in the sport.

France’s Toulouse, six times winners, are the defending champions, while the Sharks won the Challenge Cup at their first attempt last season.

All three South African teams play previous champions on Saturday, with three-time champions Toulon in South Africa to play the Stormers, England’s Exeter in Durban against the Sharks and the Bulls in London for the visit to another three-time champion in Saracens.

Sunday’s Challenge Cup matches feature the Cheetahs in Amsterdam against France’s Perpignan and the Lions in Swansea against Wales’s Ospreys.

It is full-on and all the teams are in action a week later before the knockout competition breaks until January 10 2025 when two more rounds get played.

The URC, in the final fortnight of 2024, takes priority and is back again in the final week of January 2025 and alternates with the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup last 16 and quarterfinal play-offs, which take place in the first two weeks of April.

Then it is back to the URC for a fortnight before the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup semifinal in the opening week of May, a return to the URC for a fortnight and then the final for the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup on the weekend of May 23 and 24.

From there it is back to the URC for the final stretch that includes the play-offs.

Once this is done, it is Test season again for the Springboks and in a South African context the likelihood of Currie Cup and under 21 and under 19 provincial competitions.

It is exhausting writing the schedule, so imagine how draining it will be for those playing it.

Not that you ever get players complaining. There is the obvious ache in the body and natural mental fatigue but there can only be applause for how these players somehow get themselves up for the different challenges every week. Equally the respective coaching teams.

I don’t think they get enough appreciation or applause or love for giving us our favourite sporting entertainment throughout the year.

South Africa’s home record in the Champions Cup is 13 wins in 14, with the only defeat being the Stormers last 16 one pointer against the then defending champions La Rochelle. It was also a match in which the Stormers had a chance to win with a final conversion kick, albeit into a howling and swirling wind.

South African teams, in the Champions Cup, Challenge Cup and URC, are damn difficult to beat in the Republic and the key to South African Champions Cup success is getting a home quarterfinal then semifinal, with the final played at a neutral venue each season. In 2025, it will be the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

First-round Investec Champions Cup group fixtures: