Beaten in London, Fritz Lee and his teammates nevertheless dominated the Sharks and their ten world champions in all areas of the game. Will this encouraging defeat, as is often said, be the basis of any revival?
Frankly ? This Challenge Cup semi-final leaves a strange taste in our mouths. That of having already witnessed a pleasant match, disheveled at times and ultimately bearing very little resemblance to what one has the right to expect from a final phase match, or something “to life, death”, as the cliché says. Because where have we seen, in the name of a Boer, that a semi-final between French and South Africans, dashing ambassadors of the front fight and the savagery that goes with it, delivers its first melee after thirty-five minutes? And since when, sacred blue, Clermont had no longer lost a final phase match that it should have won a hundred times ? Because we want to tackle the problem today from all its aspects, we always come back to the same conclusion: this South African team, despite being loaded with ten world champions at kick-off, did not make us a delirious feeling, Saturday afternoon. In fact, the statistics communicated by the EPCR even attest that the Lukhanyo Am teammates, faced with the very meager crowd at the Stoop Stadium, missed the trifle of forty tackles against the Jaunards…
Forty tackles, for that matter! That is to say forty opportunities offered to the bougnats to advance a few meters; which, in a busy sport like ours, is worth a few gold coins, you agree. But if that were all, good mother! In London, Christophe Urios’ boys dominated almost all the duels (forty-one defenders beaten), tore apart this beleaguered defense on each of their game launches (twelve crossings), repelled all the penetrating mauls constructed by the Sharks, stole three balls from the lineout led by Eben Etzebeth and pushed a scrum three times into error where three Springboks coexisted, namely Ox Nché (read opposite), Bongi Mbonambi and Vincent Koch. At a press conference, Sharks coach John Plumtree readily admitted this: “We had a very disappointing first half: we gave too much ammunition to our opponents, sometimes faltered in the scrum and lost several important balls under the goalkeepers.” But then, dear John? “Our team has character, pride and was able to prove it on Saturday: the Sharks can be proud of their performance.” Yeah… So to speak, what…
Jurand, Kremer, Béria: reasons to believe in it
So, Clermont will not see Tottenham. So, the ASMCA will not save a hitherto erratic season with a European championship title. And truth be told, all this is pissing off Christophe Urios : “It smelled like death in the locker room, after the match… It’s hard for the players… We wanted to win this European Cup and today, I remain convinced that the winner of this semi-final will win at the end of May (against Gloucester, Editor’s note) the competition.” If Jaude’s place will not celebrate a title this year, we probably owe it to the filthy indiscipline which characterized the first half of the Auvergnats, the string of mistakes committed by Tomas Lavanini (he was also replaced at the half-time) and others having offered the scorer opposite (Siya Masuku), twenty-two points and 100% against the poles, the opportunity to prove that he remains, despite a slightly sluggish offensive animation, the one of the most precise gunners on the African continent.
At the end, this defeat which “smells like death” is not, however, an end in itself. In London, and against some of the best rugby players on the planet, the Urios gang indeed proved that they were worth more than this somewhat gloomy eleventh place in the championship. “Facing the Sharkscontinued Christophe Urios, We showed a good level of play. In my eyes, this is our true level of play, the one we should have all the time.” One conquering move and the other submissive since the start of the season, Fritz Lee’s teammates did honor on Saturday in the final stages of the transcontinental competition and in this game, there are some of them who have overturned the table, besides Sleeve. We first think here of Joris Jurand (read elsewhere)author of a double and a match that was completely surprising, given his passable performances since the start of the season.
He is not the only one: at Stoop Stadium, Giorgi Beria, hyperactive for eighty minutes (!), probably made its leaders regret his upcoming departure for Perpignan a little more; Peceli Yato, on alternating current for weeks, shook the South Africans in all directions when Marcos Kremer or Léon Darricarrère did more than look the Springboks in the eyes. Therefore, would the Auvergne workforce be less poor than its detractors would have us believe? And is there life in Clermont when George Moala and Alivereti Raka are missing? In any case, this is what Christophe Urios preaches over and over again: “Our team cannot rely on individualities. That doesn’t work. Today, Joris Jurand and others showed that the Clermont collective was strong. I refuse to think that Clermont is limited to Alivereti Raka and George Moala If that were the case, we would have already folded up.” And some of us would have regretted it, my good sir…
