South Africa’s derby days make for Super Saturdays in the United Rugby Championship, and this weekend’s final round derbies will again showcase that ‘local is lekker’.
The South African derbies have consistently proved a league winner since the inception of the URC and on Saturday a crowd of more than 30,000 is expected at the Cape Town Stadium when the Stormers host the Lions.
The Stormers have already qualified for the league play-offs, but the highest they can place is 5th, so they won’t host a last eight play-off match. If they are to win the title for a second time in three attempts, they are most likely going to have to do it on the road.
The Stormers since that opening defeat have turned the Cape Town Stadium into a fortress and have lost just four times (twice to Ireland’s Munster) and a shock home defeat to Wales’s Ospreys a month ago.
The Lions, in experiencing their best URC season, can qualify for a first-ever URC quarterfinal with victory in Cape Town, and the talk all week has been of the Lions’ win against the Stormers in Cape Town in 2021/22 season. The Lions won the first ever URC match hosted by the Stormers at the Cape Town Stadium 37-19, and to date are the only South African team to have beaten the Stormers at this venue. The Stormers since that opening defeat have turned the Cape Town Stadium into a fortress and have lost just four times (twice to Ireland’s Munster) and a shock home defeat to Wales’s Ospreys a month ago.
The broadcast schedule means the earliest of kickoffs for the Stormers on Saturday, as their fixture clashes with all the primary high school derby matches on a weekend when Bishops plays Rondebosch Boys High and SACS plays Wynberg Boys High in the southern suburbs, while in the northern suburbs and winelands there are big match-offs that will only have just finished by the time the Stormers match starts.
Despite this, more than 30,000 will be at the Cape Town Stadium as the Stormers continue to rank highest with home attendance.
The Cape Town Stadium gates will open at 10am, with Western Province’s champion under 21s playing Free State in a 10.30am curtain-raiser. The Stormers kickoff is 1.45pm.
The Sharks, Challenge Cup winners in north London a week ago, will also expect a crowd of 30,000-plus for the visit of the charging Bulls.
The Bulls are second in the league, have scored a league high of 81 tries and have some of the most exciting backs in the league in action. The Sharks, buoyant with their Challenge Cup title win and automatic qualification into next season’s Champions Cup, have the perfect stage to thank their supporters and show that the Challenge Cup win is a testament to the improvement from a horror URC campaign.
The Sharks have won just four in 17 URC matches, but with Springboks Vincent Kock, Bongi Mbonambi and Eben Etzebeth monstrous in demolishing Gloucester at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, there is every reason to believe the Sharks can upstage the Bulls and potentially relegate them to a fourth-place finish.
A Bulls defeat, coupled with the top three winning and the Stormers winning, would mean the Bulls hosting the Stormers at Loftus in a quarterfinal in a week’s time. That would be a dream South African matchup, even if the winner would then have to travel for a semifinal and final.
The Bulls want to finish in the top two , preferably first, as that would mean the hosting of a quarterfinal, a semifinal (if successful in the quarterfinal) and, if first in the league, playing the Grand Final at home.
It is a huge weekend for the league and it is one that again emphasises South African rugby’s value to the global standing of the URC.
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