Pressure on Varsity Cup teams to perform in 2020
The popular Monday night action of the Varsity Cup rugby series is back in a few weeks and, as usual, the organizers again made some surprising changes to the format.
The 2020 Varsity Cup tournament will kick off on February 3 with a classic Northern derby with Tuks taking on NWU Pukke – a repeat of last season’s semi-final.
Both teams have announced new head coaches going into the season, with former Springbok fly-half and 2007 Rugby World Cup winner André Pretorius taking over the reins at Pukke, while Nico Luus will step up as head coach of Tuks.
In the same round, current champions Maties will host Shimlas, the surprise package of 2019, who the ‘Maroon Machine’ beat in the semi-finals. Maties will also head into the season with a new man in charge, Drikus Hancke, who steps in for Hawies Fourie who has taken over the head coaching role at the Cheetahs.
The 2020 season of the Varsity Cup is also a promotion/relegation year, which will mean that the team that finishes on top of the Varsity Shield log, over the combined log of 2019 and 2020, will automatically be promoted to the 2021 season of Varsity Cup.
Meanwhile, the ninth-placed team of the Varsity Cup log, over the combined log of 2019 and 2020, will automatically be relegated to Varsity Shield in 2021.
The team that finishes eighth on the Varsity Cup and the team ending in second position of Varsity Shield over the combined log of 2019 and 2020, will play in the promotion/relegation match on 21 April 2020. The winner of this match will play Varsity Cup in 2021.
– Meanwhile, the organizer has also announced that matches in the Varsity Shield tournament will be moved to Friday nights, while all games in the Varsity Cup tournament will start at 19:00 on Monday nights. This means that no more matches will start at 17:00 on Monday nights
Varsity Cup founder Francois Pienaar believes the adjustment of all starting times to 9:00 on Monday nights, will make Varsity Cup fixtures far more accessible across the board.
“With FNB Varsity Cup games all being played at 19:00, everyone knows what time the fixtures are no matter what campus you are on. It also allows the students to finish their lectures, get dinner and get to the stadium for the action,” Pienaar explained.
The Varsity Shield tournament will celebrate 10 years of exhilarating rugby action in 2020 and to mark this exciting occasion, this tournament will have one fixture per week televised by SuperSport on Friday nights.
The Varsity Shield has proven to be one of South Africa’s rugby treasures, producing four Springboks, namely Trevor Nyakane, Curwin Bosch, S’bu Nkosi and Herschel Jantjies. In its tenth year, the tournament will get a weekly 19:00 fixture on SuperSport and will own Friday night rugby.
“FNB Varsity Shield is our biggest growth market as the seven Varsity Shield universities collectively represent around 215 000 students – a third of the entire public university student population. We have heard the pleas of the fans and decided to act upon it and televise one Varsity Shield fixture per week,” said Varsity Cup Manager, Xhanti-Lomzi Nesi.
For the full Varsity Cup 2020 fixtures, visit: https://www.varsitycup.co.za/upcoming-varsity-cup-fixtures-logs
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