The Vodacom Blue Bulls and the ADT Fidelity Guards Lions will clash in a Gauteng derby at Loftus on Friday that will effectively decide who tops the Carling Currie Cup log.
The Fidelity ADT Lions grab the win in Bloemfontein after a tough battle against the Free State Cheetahs 👏 #CarlingCurrieCup pic.twitter.com/AAMJCiwamf
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) August 24, 2024
Both teams convincingly won their matches at the weekend and in doing so created a bit of a gap between themselves and the rest of the teams on the log. With two games to play, the Bulls are top on 36 points, with the Lions three points behind on 33.
The Vodacom Bulls maintain their unbeaten record in the 2024 #CarlingCurrieCup 🐂✅ pic.twitter.com/S6MHKxDXCq
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) August 23, 2024
Then comes a seven point gap to the third placed team, the resurgent and charging Sharks XV, followed by two teams locked in fourth, two points behind them - the Toyota Cheetahs and the Airlink Pumas. Suzuki Griquas’ big defeat at the hands of the Bulls at the start of the weekend effectively confirmed that the Pumas are the only smaller or country union still in the running for a place in the semifinals.
Like DHL Western Province, who lost to the Sharks XV in Cape Town, their remaining two games are development opportunities rather than for the Currie Cup trophy.
The Pumas will still have silverware and a repeat of their 2022 triumph in their sights when they are hosted by Province at Stellenbosch on Sunday. At this point it looks like it is between them and the Cheetahs for the fourth playoff spot, although the Sharks XV, who play the Griffons on Saturday, still have a tough away game against the Bulls in their future and can still fall out of the reckoning.
Regardless of where they end up, however, the Sharks have achieved the main objective of the domestic season, which is to develop another level of talent. The win at the DHL Stadium wasn’t their best performance of the season, but they were comprehensive winners at a venue that has not been kind to any Sharks team in recent years.
The young Sharks team has some old hands, such as man of the match Lionel Cronje, to guide them, but mostly they are the Sharks under-20 team that coach JP Pietersen guides at age group level. That being the case, the Sharks future looks in good hands, and it certainly appears the recruitment process, so long the Durban union’s Achilles heel, has come right since the arrival of John Plumtree in Durban.
WP have also been treating the competition as a development opportunity and in that sense, considering the injuries they’ve suffered that have prevented them from getting anything resembling continuity in selection, they shouldn’t be too downhearted about being relegated to also-ran status for the remainder of the competition.
They lost several players the night or morning before the Sharks game but some of the youngsters who came in did well in their first taste of Currie Cup rugby. Not as well though as their opponents, who have now gone unbeaten for five games, have done, with Nick Hatton’s team being a well coached unit with a vibrant team culture.
But it is the Bulls who continue to look like the team to beat in the competition, although that highlights one of the problems of the Currie Cup being played in this window, which should effectively be the off-season in South Africa. If the Bulls make the final, they will be playing it on the same day as their Vodacom United Rugby Championship team will be engaged in a massive first round derby against the Stormers in Cape Town.
The Sharks and Lions also meet in the URC on the same day and they could also be involved in a domestic final that weekend, which is surely problematic for both unions, but particularly the Lions, who play more URC players in the Currie Cup than the other unions because they have a smaller squad.
This window was supposedly used for the Currie Cup because it doesn’t clash with anything else outside of the Springbok games but it is hard to see how playing a Currie Cup final as a second string game on the same day that your first choice team is playing in another competition is respectful to the many players who won the competition when it was strength versus strength.
The competition has its place in the SA rugby firmament as it adds an extra level of development but it is far more redolent of the old Vodacom Cup than the Currie Cup as it was, and the crowd attendances at the bigger venues reflect that.
The opportunity though the competition itself, regardless of what we call it, presents to young players like the precociously talented Sharks centre Jurenzo ‘Boogeyman’ Julius and a phalanx of others is like gold for rugby development in this country.
It should just be renamed and become an under-23 competition, and it would make more sense for it to be played in season and not when the players should be involved in the URC pre-season.
Weekend Carling Currie Cup results
Vodacom Blue Bulls 47 Suzuki Griquas 24
DHL Western Province 23 Hollywoodbets Sharks XV 31
Toyota Cheetahs 21 Fidelity Guards ADT Lions 38
Novavit Griffons 26 Airlink Pumas 45
Round 9 Carling Currie Cup fixtures
Suzuki Griquas v Toyota Cheetahs (Kimberley, Friday 3pm)
Vodacom Blue Bulls v ADT Lions (Pretoria, Friday 5:15pm)
Hollywoodbets Sharks XV Novavit Griffons (Durban, Saturday 1:30pm)
DHL Western Province v Airlink Pumas (Stellenbosch, Sunday 3pm)