Former Springboks coach Nick Mallett has questioned the “point” of South African teams in the Investec Champions Cup if they cannot field their best sides.
This comes after South African franchises endured their worst weekend in the competition and the Challenge Cup with only the Lions notching up a win in the latter.
While the Sharks and Stormers shipped over 50 points in the UK, the Bulls were defeated at home by Northampton Saints in conditions that certainly favoured the hosts.
A shocking weekend for South African teams
Mallett did not hold back in his review of the weekend’s action dubbing it as “dreadful” and questioned why South African teams aren’t fielding their best players in the Champions Cup.
“That was a shocker and it was just a dreadful weekend for South Africa,” Mallett said on the Boks Office podcast.
“It started off with the Bulls, it was a 3 pm game, nice a hot day and everyone thought okay Northampton are going to struggle a little bit. The Bulls were all over them territorially and in possession but couldn’t hold on to a pass or create a try and ended up losing the game 30-20.
“I mean no one really had anticipated that result and you could see by the Northampton Saints’ players after the game, I mean, it felt like they’d won the World Cup, they were so happy – very, very frustrating from the Bulls’ point of view.
“Then two very weak sides being sent over by the Sharks and the Stormers and got 50 points each. So just a really disappointing weekend.”
The former Springboks boss pointed to how Leinster and Ireland managed the playing time of legendary fly-half Johnny Sexton to show that it is possible.
What doesn’t make sense to Mallett is why the teams are fielding their best players in the URC in order to qualify for the Champions Cup but when they are in the latter tournament, they rotate the squad.
“There are lots of things we need to talk about here just about the relevance of this competition for South African teams if we aren’t able to pick our strongest side to play in the strongest competition, what’s the point?” he continued.