Duane Vermeulen and Schalk Brits have watched the growth of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship with keen interest and agree that this is a competition bringing a new era of competitive depth to the game.
Duane Vermeulen knows what rugby dominance looks like.
At the highest level of the game he’s seen it and been part of it with the Springboks in the Rassie Erasmus era. He’s also been on the end of it in the era of Super Rugby as he watched a team like the Crusaders dominate that competition.
But when he looks at the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, Vermeulen is hard-pressed to find any one team that he thinks could show a similar dominance of this competition. In the three seasons to date of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship there have been three different champions. And it’s a trend Vermeulen thinks could continue because of the intensely competitive nature of the competition.
An open competition
“I think it’s such a competitive competition that it’s pretty much open to anyone,” he says as he sits in the RED Suite at Loftus watching the Vodacom Bulls team which was the last South African club team he played for before retiring.
“You could probably go back to the Vodacom Bulls team in that period of 2006 to 2010 and say they had the potential to dominate this competition. But even so, if you look at a team like Leinster, they dominated their Pro14 before it became the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, and they have yet to win this title. The Glasgow Warriors have won it and they made the playoffs again for a second season running, so they look like an in-form team in the competition. But to be honest, I think you can maybe have a bit of dominance, but I don’t think it will stay there for long periods of time. This competition is just too difficult to really stay the number one team for a long time.”
It’s an opinion shared by fellow Springbok Schalk Brits.
VURC playoff rugby is hard
“Leinster have been so dominant in this competition but have yet to win it. So playoff rugby in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship is clearly hard. It’s incredibly hard to win away from home in this competition,” says Brits.
As a country though, there has been strong dominance of the competition by South Africa.
The first Grand Final featured two South African teams in the DHL Stormers and the Vodacom Bulls. The second Grand Final again featured the DHL Stormers as they faced Ireland’s Munster. And the third Grand Final featured the Vodacom Bulls against Scotland’s Glasgow Warriors.
South African country dominance
South African representation in the final is more than any other country in the competition. All three finals have also been played in South Africa. And this current season there were three South African teams in the playoffs, which was again the biggest representation of any country in the competition.
“This is where we want to see South African teams thrive, because this competition has prepared the Springbok set-up so much better for Test rugby. Our rugby is in a very healthy space, and it’s amazing seeing the talent coming through,” says Brits.
But Brits takes an even wider view of the competition when he identifies what he believes it has done for the modern generation’s young rugby player.
Young players becoming great human beings
“It’s great to see these teams keep on evolving, but it’s even better seeing young men come into these teams and mature into proper gentlemen. For me the biggest thing is growing as a human being, irrelevant of what happens on the rugby pitch. That’s the more important part. This game will come and go, but the human being doesn’t change. That is what inspires me about what we’re seeing in this competition.”
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