Currie Cup is a closed club

Saturday's Currie Cup final will be more of the same. It's not that the Sharks and Province have been regular adversaries - they have played one another only four times in a final - but between them they have been to 26 cup finals over the past 40 years, including this week's game.

That's just one more than the Blue Bulls have on their own.

Since 1971, when they drew 14-14 with the Lions, the Bulls have been dominant, reaching the final 25 times and winning 15 times. But even that level of dominance is not as good as Western Province's record.

Over the previous 81 years, when the Currie Cup was contested 31 times, Province won 18 times.

During the same period, from 1889 to 1970, the Lions and Bulls (then in their old guises of Transvaal and Northern Transvaal) won four times each.

The last 40 years of the Currie Cup have been the most open of the competition, even if they have been dominated by the Big Five: the Bulls, Western Province, the Sharks, Lions and Cheetahs.

Over 121 years of Currie Cup rugby, only five other teams have had a look-in. Border did twice, sharing it both times with WP in 1932 and 1934.

Boland got there once, and had a home final in Wellington, but lost to a late Natie Rens drop-goal that made grown men cry.

The Falcons (then Eastern Transvaal) had one home final but lost it to the Lions at the bleak PAM Brink stadium in Springs.

Griquas won it twice at a time when Kimberley was a place to be reckoned with: in 1899, just before the Boers besieged Cecil John Rhodes there in the South African War, and again in 1911, a year after union.

They won again in 1970.