Community Cup ready to go

Community Cup ready to go

22 Nov 2012

Saru has finalised the four pools for next year’s new open-club competition .

Springbok captain Jean de Villiers, coach Heyneke Meyer and Saru president Oregan Hoskins made the draw at the team’s hotel in London.

There will be four pools of five open clubs competing in the inaugural tournament, which replaces the old National Club Championships. The top-two finishers in each group will advance to the knockout rounds.

The campaign starts on 16 February, with eight first-round match-ups and ends with the play-offs over the Easter weekend in George. This will see the tournament run at the same time as the Varsity Cup.

‘It’s fantastic to see club rugby coming back on to the radar and I feel privileged to have been able to draw the names of the first teams to ever play in the Community Cup,’ said De Villiers, who played club matches for Maties against Tygerberg and Villager in the Western Province Super League as recently as 2006.

‘Club rugby got left behind by professionalism in the sense that it was put on the back burner for a long time, but now competitions such as the Varsity Cup and Community Cup will hopefully ensure that club players have a proper stage on which to show just how much talent we have in this country which we’ve only just begun to tap into.’

Every weekend, there will be one league match televised, starting with the opening ceremony in Durban at College Rovers. Most of the play-off games will be televised.

The Community Cup fixture schedule will be finalised over the next week.

Pool A:
College Rovers (KZN)
Despatch (EP)
Villagers Worcester (Boland)
Sishen (Griquas)
SK Walmers (WP, wildcard)

Pool B:
Pretoria Police (Blue Bulls)
Durbanville-Bellville (WP)
Bloemfontein Police (Free State)
Welkom Rovers (Griffons)
African Bombers (EP, wildcard)

Pool C:
Rustenburg Impala (Leopards)
Roodepoort (Lions)
Noordelikes (Limpopo)
Bloemfontein Crusaders (Free State, wildcard)
Raiders (Lions, wildcard)

Pool D:
Old Selbornians (Border)
Brakpan (Valke)
White River (Mpumalanga)
Evergreens (SWD)
Roses Utd (Boland, wildcard)


8 Comments

  • 1.ShaunMichaels: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 10:22 am

    This tournament is a political sham. Two of the stronger clubs in the country have been excluded, namely Hamiltons and Durban Collegians. How can Durban (the 2nd biggest metropolitan in the country and arguably the strongest Club Rugby competition) only have 1 team representing it? Rovers will walk this tournament, giving sides cricket scores on their way to the final.

  • 2.nortierd: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 12:13 pm

    Group B looks like the group of death

  • 3.sparticus: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 12:29 pm

    @ShaunMichaels-1: Shaun , the teams were picked on results excluding the Universities as they have the varsity cup running as well. Granted there was wildcards in each Region. Dunno about Collegians but in the Cape Sk walmers were picked ahead of Hammies as a wildcard and if you think that that is politically motivated then you need to relook at the two teams , both are diverse clubs with no racial dominance as far as I can see.

  • 4.CharlesM: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 12:34 pm

    @sparticus-3: Durbanville-Bellville and Stellenbosch finished on 81 points each from their 18 matches. Hamiltons finished 3rd on 61 or 62 if I remember correctly (I know they lost 6 matches during the competition). SK- Walmers finished 5th as far as I can recall after the 4th placed UCT. Although Hammies are quite strong there wasn’t much between them and SK-Walmers

  • 5.CharlesM: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 12:40 pm

    @CharlesM-4: I just had a look at the log and SK-W had 48 points: they won 9 of their 18 fixtures. So there was some daylight between Hammies and SK-W (14 points: 62 – 48).
    I would like to know how the wildcard draws were done though @nortierd-2: Yes, the 2 Police clubs as well as Durbanville-Bellville will give each other quite a go. I’m not sure about the strength of Welkom Rovers and African Bombers

  • 6.nortierd: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 12:43 pm

    I wonder if Superbru will run the tournament as well?

  • 7.Seven: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 13:25 pm

    Wildcard teams are definitely politically motivated…SK walmers are not a bad side, but hammies finished above them so should rightly be there. Also they could arguably called a predominantly ‘non-white’ team

  • 8.ShaunMichaels: Reply to this comment
    22 Nov 2012, 14:19 pm

    The 14 automatic qualifiers all rightfully deserve their place in the comp. As for the wildcards, well most of them were all politically motivated. Durban Collegians is the only “open club” (excluding a couple varsity teams) in the country that has beaten College Rovers. Once this year and once in 2009, bearing in mind that Rovers have only lost 4 or 5 times in the last 4 years. I reckon the only club that will come close to Rovers is Durbanville and maybe Despatch. The rest will be used as cannon fodder as we saw in the club champs this year.

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