The trials and tribulations of hemisphere hopping

STAT ATTACK: Travelling to and from South Africa remains a major challenge for United Rugby Championship teams.

Between them, the four South African franchises have played 16 league games in the Northern Hemisphere this season and suffered 13 defeats.

The Stormers – finalists for the past two years and winners in the inaugural URC season – lost all four of their matches on their European tour last month.

The Sharks also lost all their tour games at the start of the campaign.

The Bulls have had the most joy, winning away against Cardiff and Zebre.

The Lions claimed a late victory at the Scarlets, but the Bulls and Lions both suffered losses on the road.

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

Only Connacht have tasted victory in the Republic, beating the Sharks 13-12 in Durban in Round Five.

The other seven cross-hemisphere matches in SA have all produced home wins and by significant margins in several cases.

Six of the matches have seen the franchises rack up 50-plus points on home soil amid the following scorelines – 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 fullback Aphelele Fassi having run for the most metres (538) and lock Emile van Heerden having won the most line-outs (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.