It’s all systems go for the eight teams gunning for Varsity Hockey men’s hockey glory at Maties Astro this weekend and the indicators are that the quality is going to be a treat for fans.

University of Pretoria (Tuks) and defending champs University of Johannesburg (UJ) won all their matches at UJ the past weekend and look to be cruising towards Monday’s late afternoon/early evening semi-finals.

Goal-scoring hasn’t been much of a hurdle for the Tuks lads who have potent strikers supplemented by a creative midfield and a solid defence. Their conversion rate in front of goal and miserly defence ensured the Tuks men top spot at the close of the UJ leg of the competition, albeit on goal difference against UJ.

UJ have been involved in some classic Varsity Hockey contests where their fortunes have swayed to and fro, but the calibre of their personnel suggests they have a real chance of retaining the trophy won back in 2014, in what is a biannual men’s event interspersed in the intervening years by the equally popular women’s competition.

Maties, in third place going into Friday’s action, were finalists in 2014, and boast a speedy bunch of front runners, whose tempo has caught a posse of opposition defensive line-ups napping. A generous 18 strikes in four outings attests to this and one fancies that the defenders who come up against this classy combination on the Maties turf are in for a busy time.

The Maties’ blemish was a nail-biter of a defeat at the hands of the hosts on day one at UJ but this is unlikely to worry canny coach Ashlin Freddy – indeed it’s sure to fire up the talented Stellenbosch lads in a manner that is not to be welcomed by their opponents.

Semi-final time on Monday is sure to produce fireworks of the first order and a defeat here or there is not going to make much of a difference either way as the top four teams, post-league phase, will get a slot in the last-four playoffs.

Fourth-placed Wits have been most impressive – particularly so as they haven’t fared well in the annual University Sport South Africa tournament since the rise and rise of UJ hockey from its early days as Rand Afrikaans University.

It’s well to note that Maties and Wits are level-pegging on nine log points a-piece but the former enjoy a superior goal difference. For fifth-placed University of Cape Town (UCT) and sixth-placed NMMU Madibaz (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) the hunt for silverware is not over yet and they will be looking to target maximum returns from their bust-ups on days one and two with the seventh and eighth-ranked varsities after the UJ leg, University of the Free State (Kovsies) and the Pukke of North West University in Potchefstroom.