South African coaches sound alarm after tough weekend for teams in Champions Cup

Both the Sharks and the Stormers travelled north with severely understrength teams and paid a high price: the Sharks, last season's Challenge Cup winners, werw humbled 56-17 by Leicester, while the Stormers were thrashed 53-16 at Harlequins.

Faced with burdensome demands on their top players, South African teams are choosing to prioritise the URC over the Champions Cup, but it's leading to mis-matches that are threatening to tarnish the reputation of the highly-respected competition.

"Not a good look," was the verdict on Saturday night of Stormers head coach John Dobson, an outstanding rugby figure and not one to sugar-coat anything.

Sharks counterpart John Plumtree added: "In a busy schedule, with the current travel arrangements and everything else that go with it, it's not a high performance competition.

"It might be a premier competition, and a great competition. But unless they sort it all out and do it properly it's become a tough task for teams to go to South Africa, and South African teams coming here."

In six matches to date South African sides have lost five, the exception being the Sharks' home victory over winless Exeter Chiefs on the opening weekend. In their three away games they have been outscored by 20 tries to four.

"I'm probably over-speaking now but we have to [sit down and work this out]," said Dobson. "We have got to make sure we can stay here."

Both he and Plumtree advocate a tweak to the pool calendar so that teams going from one hemisphere to another play back to back games in the same part of the world, thereby enabling them to take fuller squads and, in so doing, place a greater onus on player welfare.

"We're all competitive," said Plumtree. "I want to give Leicester a good hiding, in front of their home crowd. Don't worry about that. But the reality is we've got to look after these athletes. They are not robots. And right now, they're treated like robots.

"They are playing in northern hemisphere rugby and southern hemisphere rugby and it's crazy, it's crazy. I feel sorry for them. Bloody tough, you know."

Dobson does not want to cry foul too loud but knows a solution is needed. "It's like being invited to someone's birthday party then complaining about the chips," he said. "We are so grateful to be here."

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