With the best of the best available, rugby’s domestic competition promises to thrill
After two weekends of festival-type rugby, it's now time for the real deal and hopefully the new-look local competitions will deliver plenty of action.
Bulls captain Duane Vermeulen will for the first time in years play in a full-on domestic competition after previously playing in Europe or Japan at this time of the year. Picture: Getty Images
It’s about time to roll back to the good times.
It might be an over-used quote but definitely fitting to borrow the phrase with the “real” local competition having kicked off this weekend.
Local rugby might have returned already two weeks ago, but one got the impression that was just to stretch the players legs and shake off the worst rust after being confined to a caged-in training programme during the seven months of lockdown.
It was very evident from the Super Fan Saturday at Loftus that some teams came out more hungry and determined to prove a point and here the kudos belonged to the Bulls and the Stormers, who respectively outplayed the Sharks and the Lions.
But it was also a super anti-climax and why was it called “Super Fan Saturday” when no supporters were allowed to attend any of the two matches?
To the Sharks and Lions’ credit though, they came back after being down 35-0 and 20-7 to go down 49-28 and 34-21 respectively.
It was then followed by the Green and Gold Springbok Showdown, which was a big yawn to say the least and dominated by kicking and forward play and predictably lead to a 25-9 win by the Green team, who had the stronger pack and a more seasoned flyhalf in Elton Jantjies at their disposal.
During this time the Cheetahs, who played no part at Loftus but at least had six players at Newlands, had to keep themselves “busy” by arranging two warm-up matches against Griquas in Kimberley and Bloemfontein, both won by the defending Currie Cup champions by margins of 40-7 and 31-21.
But in the end these two “curtain-raiser” weekends were only done in order to shape the teams for the real McCoy, which is this weekend’s. Super Rugby Unlocked series, followed by seven weeks of the Currie Cup.
While there’s no final in the Unlocked series, with the winner being decided by the most log points, it’s crucial not to lag too far behind when the Currie Cup starts, where points are being carried over.
At the time of writing no call yet was made whether the Boks would take part in the Rugby Championship or whether players would be allowed to add grunt to full-strength squads in the local competition.
It’s been many years since the top Boks were allowed to participate in the Currie Cup, as they were withdrawn out of national interest, which took a bit of the gloss off the competition.
But SA rugby will take decisions with the interest of the game at heart, or so we hope.
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