Armchair fans will be able to feast on televised rugby like never before this coming weekend as the Castle Lager Rugby Championship and the Vodacom United Rugby Championship coincide at very different points of their respective seasons.
On a different tack, there’s also the WXV2 being played in the Cape, the women’s tournament where the South Africans are hoping to do well. They kick off the bonanza rugby fare for the weekend when they play Japan at 3.50pm on Friday afternoon, a game that will be televised live on channel 211 before later in the evening the URC comes into focus.
The URC, likened to rugby’s version of a marathon as opposed to a sprint, heads into the second round with a full complement of eight matches, but this will be the kick-off to the new season for the four local franchises. They were set to play each other in derby games last weekend but those were postponed until an as yet unspecified later date due the clash with the Carling Currie Cup final.
SHARKS NEED TO BE GROUNDED
The Hollywoodbets Sharks XV won that game with a stupendous long-range kick from former Emirates Lions player Jordan Hendrikse at the death, but now face the difficult task of grounding themselves after last week’s emotion so that they can pitch for Saturday evening’s clash with Connacht in Galway.
It will be a tough start for the Sharks, as it will for the DHL Stormers, with the 2021/2022 champions opening against the Ospreys in Swansea in a game that will be played at the same time, both of them kicking off at 8.35pm on Saturday night - in other words just a few hours after the curtain comes down on the Springbok Rugby Championship campaign with their game against Argentina in Nelspruit.
That might seem a perfect way to end the rugby weekend, and a jam-packed two days starting with the women’s game and extending through two Friday night URC games. Last week saw close games, with the biggest winning margin being five points, which can be seen as an indication that this new season will be every bit as competitive, if not more so, than last season, when everything came down to the last game of the league phase.
URC CHAMPS UNDER PRESSURE
Teams can’t afford to slip up, so Glasgow Warriors, the reigning champions, will consider themselves to be under pressure when they play Benetton at the Scotstoun. It should be an emotional homecoming for Glasgow, who won the title away from home by beating the Bulls at Loftus in June, but they will need to win after their loss on the opening night to Ulster.
Benetton, who were knocked out of last season’s competition by the Bulls at the quarterfinal stage, are expected to be challengers again so Glasgow should be wary of them, even though they are playing at a venue where they hardly ever lose.
LUNCH TIME MADNESS IN JOBURG
Ulster will follow up their win on the opening night by travelling to Johannesburg, where they face the Lions in what is effectively a lunchtime kick-off, 12.55pm, thus starting the buildup to the Bok game later in the day. For the Lions, the big challenge will be to get over their disappointment of last week’s domestic final, but they should be strong favourites given that not only is it a lunchtime kick-off at altitude, it is also likely to be hot.
Which should also be the case up the N1 at Loftus, where the Bulls will be looking to put the disappointment of last season’s final defeat to Glasgow behind them, plus also the narrow loss to the Sharks in the extended Currie Cup semifinal, when they host the other Scottish team, Edinburgh.
THE MAIN EVENTS
Those two games will be sandwiched in between the two main events of the weekend - Bledisloe 2 and the Mbombela Stadium clash that had extra interest injected into it by last week’s Bok defeat in Santiago.
The first Bledisloe Cup game in Sydney last week was won by the All Blacks by just three points, but it was a bizarre game. For most of the first part of the clash it conformed to the expected script, with the All Blacks just way too good for a Wallaby team that was coming off a 67-27 thrashing at the hands of the Pumas.
However, the Kiwis appeared to get seduced by how easily they were running through their opponents and became loose and sloppy. Some slack defence allowed the Aussies back into the game and there was quite a dramatic momentum shift late in the game, when, with a bit of luck, the Wallabies might even have gotten over the line to win.
Will that embolden them ahead of the return game in New Zealand? Possibly, and it does need to be noted that the game is being played in Wellington, which has smiled very differently on the All Blacks recently compared to Eden Park, where they rebounded against Argentina a few weeks ago. New Zealand hasn’t lost in Auckland since 1994, whereas their last loss in Wellington was as recently as last month. That was where they lost their opening Championship game to the Pumas.
NELSPRUIT GRAND FINALE
The All Blacks are in the rare position of playing their final game without the Championship trophy being on the line. The grand finale this year is at Mbombela, where the Boks will be strong favourites but the Pumas will be ambitious.
The visitors are in a position they’ve never been in before - they are playing the last game with a chance of snatching the trophy.
That chance is admittedly small, with the Argentinians needing to not only win, but also to deny the Boks a losing bonus point and score three more tries than them. It is hard to see that happening, but the Boks might be haunted a bit by the purple patch that saw the Pumas score 26 unanswered points during a period in the second half of the first half in Santiago.
The Boks won’t be interested in picking up the one bonus point they need to ensure they secure the Championship trophy for only the second time - they will want to win the game to emphasise their dominance of the competition.
It is also another one of those dry runs, or dress rehearsals, that the Bok coach loves putting his players through in preparation for the pressure they may face in what now is still a very distant potential World Cup final in 2027.
ALL THE RUGBY ACTION ON SUPERSPORT THIS WEEKEND:
FRIDAY
3.50pm WXV 2 - SA v Japan (Channel 211)
8.35pm Vodacom URC - Leinster v Dragons
8.35pm Vodacom URC - Glasgow Warriors v Benetton
SATURDAY
9.05am - Castle Lager Rugby Championship/Bledisloe Cup - New Zealand v Australia
12.55pm Vodacom URC - Emirates Lions v Ulster
3.00pm Vodacom URC - Vodacom Bulls v Edinburgh
4.00pm Vodacom URC - Zebre v Munster
5.05pm Castle Lager Rugby Championship - South Africa v Argentina
6.15pm Vodacom URC - Llanelli Scarlets v Cardiff Rugby
8.35pm Vodacom URC - Connacht v Hollywoodbets Sharks
20.35 Vodacom URC - Ospreys v DHL Stormers