All roads in the Gauteng province will lead to Johannesburg on Saturday afternoon for a blockbuster Vodacom United Rugby Championship double-header that features the Emirates Lions and Vodacom Bulls, who are hosting Leinster and Zebre Parma.
To maximise the commercial opportunity of drawing Gauteng’s rugby fans to one venue for two matches, Emirates Airline Park in Johannesburg will on Saturday host the first of two unique double-headers, with the two local teams set to swap international opponents at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria next week.
The action kicks off at 1pm (local time) when the Vodacom Bulls charge at Zebre Parma before the resurgent Emirates Lions face top-ranked Leinster at 4pm.
There is plenty on the line for the South African teams, both hunting a place in the top eight of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
The 11th-placed Emirates Lions go into the match against Leinster on the back of two successive Vodacom URC wins, over Benetton and the Vodacom Bulls. This has seen The Pride close the gap on the top eight to just five points.
It will take the Emirates Lions’ best performance of the year to hand the Irish giants their first loss of the season.
The Pride will be banking on their home crowd and the altitude factor to give them a handy boost in the clash, but they will know they have to be water-tight in defence and slick in attack to record what would be a noteworthy upset.
Leinster are missing a host of senior players, but showed last season that even when they rest their top dogs, they still have more than enough cohesion and fight to cause the South Africans a problem.
“We know that they thrive on quick ball, so we want to make sure that we slow them down. We want to stop them on defence, and we want to be direct first,” said Emirates Lions centre Marius Louw.
“In all aspects of the game, we want to make sure we beat them. It is simple for us, and it is nothing special. We must put ourselves in as many battles as we can and eventually, we will come out on top.”
Earlier in the day, the Vodacom Bulls will play the league's last-placed Zebre, with the Italians running out of time to record their first win of the season.
While the home changeroom at Emirates Airline Park will be foreign to the Pretoria outfit, they will play in the high-altitude conditions they’re accustomed to at Loftus Versfeld, which is 50 kilometres away from Emirates Airline Park.
When the Vodacom Bulls first faced Zebre Parma they cruised to a six-try, 45-6 victory at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi in February last year. Though Jake White’s team will be confident of producing another compelling performance against winless Zebre, there is nothing more dangerous in rugby than a team with nothing to lose.