URC: South African travel trials under the spotlight

An in-depth statistical look at the trials and tribulations teams face when traveling to and from South Africa for the United Rugby Championship (URC) campaign.

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THE NUMBERS BEHIND SOUTH AFRICAN TRAVEL

Between them, the four franchises from the Rainbow Nation have played 16 league games in the northern hemisphere this season and suffered 13 defeats.

The Stormers – finalists for the past two years – lost all four of their matches on their European tour last month, as did the Sharks at the start of the campaign.

Bulls have had the most joy, winning away against Cardiff Rugby and Zebre Parma, while the Emirates Lions claimed a late victory at the Scarlets, but they have both suffered losses too.

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As for travelling to South Africa, well that’s proved even tougher.

Only Connacht have tasted victory out there, beating the Sharks 13-12 in Durban in Round 5. The other seven cross-hemisphere matches in SA have all produced home wins and by significant margins in a number of cases.

Six of the URC matches have seen the franchises rack up 50-plus points on home soil amid the following score-lines – 69-14, 63-21, 61-19, 54-5, 53-27, 52-7.

A couple of those bumper scores have been recorded by the Bulls who are the country’s frontrunners, having won five of their seven matches to lie third in the table.

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They have accumulated more points (272) and more tries (37) than any other side in the league, demonstrating their potent attacking threat.

The Sharks are the lowest placed South African side, down in 15th after just one win. However they do have two individuals leading the way, with full-back Aphelele Fassi having run for the most metres (538) and lock Emile van Heerden having won the most lineouts (37).

But, above all, there’s one clear lesson from the campaign so far. When it comes to hemisphere hopping, any away successes are at a real premium.

To further illustrate the point, no European team won in South Africa in the first two rounds of the Champions and Challenge Cup.

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