The EPCR Challenge Cup comes to a close this Friday night, with the stage set for an exciting evening of action at the magnificent Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Gloucester Rugby take on the Hollywoodbets Sharks in this season’s finale, with both sides eyeing up this shot of lifting a piece of silverware.
There’s an added incentive for Friday evening’s finalists as the winner of the EPCR Challenge Cup will be guaranteed a place in the 2024/25 Investec Champions Cup. Neither Gloucester or Sharks can qualify by virtue of their league positions in the Premiership or URC, so whoever lifts the trophy will take the place of the eighth-ranked club in their league (Leicester Tigers or Benetton Treviso), for next season’s elite tournament.
Gloucester are eyeing up a unique club and European double for the 2023/24 season, having already secured the Premiership Rugby Cup back in March. The Cherry and Whites took home the trophy after a 23-13 win over Leicester Tigers, and could hand a second hammer blow to the East Midlanders by knocking them out of next season’s Champions Cup, should Gloucester win the Challenge Cup on Friday.
Gloucester are set to make additional Challenge Cup history this Friday evening, as they embark on their fifth appearence in the tournament’s final. The West Country club equalise RC Toulon’s record of run-out’s in the Challenge Cup Final, and currently hold a 2-2 win-loss record at the showpiece event. Gloucester took home the trophy against London Irish in 2006 and Edinburgh in 2015, before suffering back-to-back final defeats to Stade Francais and Cardiff Blues in the 2017 and 2018 finals.
Should Gloucester end the night triumphant over the Sharks, the Cherry and Whites will join the exclusive ranks of three-time Challenge Cup winners. Only Harlequins and Clermont Auvergne have won the title a trio of times, with George Skivington’s side eager to be added to the honourable company. Meanwhile, the Sharks come into Friday night’s fixture with the goal of becoming the first South African side to win a piece of EPCR silverware.
Should the Sharks sink their teeth into the trophy at the end of Friday night, they will become the 19th side to win the Challenge Cup. Regardless of whatever sponsorship name has proceeded the Sharks throughout their history, the Durban side are amongst the biggest ‘bridesmaid’ teams across world rugby. Before joining the expanded United Rugby Championship, the Sharks reached the Super Rugby Final on four occasions, yet they have failed to come away victorious on each attempt. This has earned them the worst finals record in all of Super Rugby.
Looking at the notable players amongst the two squads, only former England wing Jonny May has experienced a Challenge Cup title win before. The Gloucester flyer was apart of the Cherry and Whites side that triumphed over Edinburgh in 2015, as Gloucester handed the Scottish club a 19-13 defeat at the Twickenham Stoop. Comparatively, two members of the Sharks team have experienced an EPCR final before, in the Springbok duo of Vincent Koch and Eben Etzebeth.
Koch is a two-time winner of the Champions Cup with Saracens, whilst Etzebeth represented Toulon when the French giants were defeated by Lyon in the 2022 Challenge Cup Final. Of the current Gloucester squad, Freddie Clarke, Lewis Ludlow and Jonny May played in the losing 2017 final against Stade Francais at Murrayfield, while Ruan Ackermann, Fraser Balmain, Val Rapava-Ruskin and Ludlow all featured in the 31-30 defeat by Cardiff, in the 2018 decider in Bilbao.
There is a reunion on the cards for Sharks lock Gerbrandt Grobler, as the South African played for Gloucester between 2018 and 2020. The second rower could well take on some of his former teammates on Friday night, and knows all the skillset that Gloucester captain Ludlow will bring to the fray.
Ludow leads this season’s tournament tackling statistics with 78 completed hits in the competition. Also, Gloucester’s highly influential number eight Zach Mercer, is the tournament’s top carrier to date with 109 completed carries.
