Seven highlights from the SuperSport Rugby Challenge group stages

A shorter and sharper SuperSport Rugby Challenge group stages came to an end after seven rounds with the Florida Park Festival in Cape Town on Sunday. The business end of the competition, the semifinals, may be upon us with the top four sides convening in Nelspruit to decide the finalists this weekend, but we look back at seven highlights from the group stages – one for each round.

THE PUMAS’ SPOTLESS RECORD

Following DHL Western Province’s loss to the Boland Cavaliers, the ISG Pumas remain the only unbeaten team in the competition, having won all seven of their North Section games. The scarier thing about the defending champions is that they also won all 11 of their games en route to winning the tournament last year as well (eight round-robin matches and three knockout games), meaning they have now won 18 games on the trot.

ELEPHANTS UPSET SHARKS XV...

In the competition’s three-year history, the biggest upset had been the Toyota Free State XV beating Western Province in last year’s quarterfinals. So when the Eastern Province Elephants mugged a complacent Cell C Sharks XV 27-7 at Wolfston Stadium, this was probably the first big upset of the tournament (as in a non-franchise side beating a franchise side). The Elephants’ aggression and growing belief were a thing to behold on the day.

BOLAND: “HOLD OUR BEER!”

While the rest of us were still marvelling at that result, the Boland Cavaliers decided to go one better by beating 2017 champions and the competition’s other resident juggernaut, Western Province. Boland’s hard-won, and deserved, 22-21 win at Florida Park this past weekend was almost in indecent haste, given that it was just a week after the Elephants had swum with the Sharks and lived to tell the tale. Maybe the so-called smaller teams are starting to believe against the big teams, which is the whole point of the competition.

TWO HAT-TRICKS AND A DEFEAT

Come to think of it, this could work just as well as a lowlight. In the Hino Valke’s 52-50 win over the Leopards, at the Rustenburg Impala Stadium, the hosts scored eight tries to seven and somehow ended up on the wrong side of the result. Worse, Eugene Hare and Edmund Rheeder scored a hat-trick each and still ended up on the losing side, which must be a rarity in World Rugby.

THE BULLS’ COMEBACK AGAINST THE LIONS

Ten minutes into this fixture, at the Bosman Stadium in Brakpan, the Vodacom Blue Bulls were 12-0 down and, according to their assistant coach David Manuel, had touched the ball just twice. But then they clicked and went on to score nine tries to somehow emerge 62-24 winners. Of all the derbies that have taken place between these two bitter rivals, this was one of the stranger encounters, one of the highlights in an otherwise difficult campaign for the Bulls.

AN 18-YEAR-OLD PROP, WHAT’S THAT?

At some stage, the Xerox Golden Lions’ prop stocks ran so low that they had to field SA Schools prop Jacobus Agenbag in their game against the Valke. The 18-year-old comes highly recommended and is recognised as a star of the future – a Steven Kitshoff of sorts. By all accounts he had his struggles scrumming against the hardened folks from the East Rand, but the Lions won that game 43-40...

THEN THE BULLDOGS FIELD A 44-YEAR-OLD SCRUMHALF...

Earlier in the tournament we ran story on the Valke’s 35-year-old flanker Martin Sithole, throwing in the obligatory “Oom” in our references to him. Imagine our shock when the Border Bulldogs fielded 44-year-old scrumhalf Yongama Mkaza a week later. Having run into problems with the experience of his halfbacks after Bangihlome Kobese was injured, Tiger Mangweni decided to get an old teammate, Swallows player-coach Mkaza. The move made Mkaza the oldest player to take the field in South Africa post-isolation. For some reason Mangweni seems to labour under the misapprehension that Mkaza is actually 46, which would make 44 his “rugby age” if it was true.