'No travel woes for European clubs' says Sharks centre

NEWS: Sharks and Springbok centre Andre Esterhuizen says the demands of travelling to Europe are “tough” and will continue to be until a solution is found.

He reckons the European clubs have it much easier as they only travel once a year. He also referred to the time he played for Harlequins and explained that it wasn’t difficult for them to compete in both the Premiership and the Champions Cup.

The big Bok centre earned 87 caps for Harlequins from 2020 to 2024.

South Africa’s participation in the Champions Cup came under the spotlight this week after the three qualified teams (Sharks, Bulls, and Stormers) lost their respective matches.

Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett questioned the SA coaches’ approach to navigating the two competitions they compete in—the United Rugby Championship and the Champions Cup.

“There’s a lot of things we need to talk about here, just about the relevance of this competition for South African teams,” Mallett commented on BOKSOFFICE this week.

*Read what Mallett said on BOKSOFFICE HERE 

“If we aren’t able to pick our strongest side to play in the strongest competition, what’s the point?

“We’re playing our Springboks trying to get into the European Cup and then we take our Springboks out when they go play an away game in a Champions Cup and that doesn’t make sense to me,” Mallett continued.

As the Sharks were battling injury woes ahead of their Champions Cup game, coach John Plumtree opted to leave the bulk of their Springbok contingent at home to prepare for their URC match against the Bulls, which saw them thrashed by Leicester Tigers.

Esterhuizen was among a group of internationals rested for the Sharks’ trip to England.

He met with reporters on Wednesday and fielded questions about the demands of travelling and the effect it has on players.

“The [international and club] schedules clash, with the Rugby Championship and the URC, and then there’s the Champions Cup, but we try to manage it as best we can,” Esterhuizen stated.

“It’s easy for an English side to send a full-strength team to South Africa because they travel once a year. We [South African sides] travel up and down four or five times a season.

“I played for Quins and it wasn’t tough to play in two competitions [Premiership and Champions Cup].

“At the moment, every player’ is on a different schedule,” he added. “A player like Eben Etzebeth played 12 Tests this year and then came back into a season that’s just started and has another 23 games left if you count the finals.”

Travelling to and from Europe for single matches also affects preparation as the Sharks only managed to train on Wednesday for the first time this week ahead of their Bulls clash in Durban this weekend.

“Bouncing back is our main priority. We only met up today [Wednesday] as the boys had the day off yesterday after the long travel back,” Esterhuizen explained.