Thursday, May 24, 2007

Wrap Week 5:

The league is in recess now until August due to our long winter exams and looming examinations but it went to sleep on a high note last night with the first weeks match ups of Round 2.

The purpose of Round 1 was to seed the teams into pools of equal strength so that the pool games leading up to the play-offs would ensure the match ups in the knock out stages would be as equal and as competitive as possible.

This structure would obviously enforce traditional minnow sides to face off against more established sides and despite what scoreboards reflect the games were hard, fast and very competitive.

The off field issue last night was the lack of organised referees. Usually Western Province Society refs come out to get blamed for losses but a major oversight by management meant that this was not the case and we had to beg, borrow and persuade refs to depart from the warm comfort of the sidelines and take up the most high profile job available.

Gracious thanks must be extended to Stu, Chad, Tom, Mike, Sean and Burt for being courageous enough to take up the whistle and give every player there last night the opportunity to actually play!

The games of Pool A saw Nadoes roll out an emphatic victory over College House in a very physical encounter and Ubumbo running away with a very tight match against Clarendon. Both games were punctuated with some entertaining interplay and individual touches of brilliance. Special mention must go to Clarendon, historically a very underprivileged side yet this year have been more than impressive.

Pool B entertained a strong Barbarians win over Ikhaya, and the very important res derby where Marquard beat out Kopano in a close game. Ikhaya having been struggling to grapple with the harships of Internal League rugby but there raw enthusiasm bodes well for a new side and if there were prizes for team spirit and support they would certainly walk away with top honours.

Pool C hosted the continuances of the points machine, the Purple Cobras, as they chalked up a big victory over Smuts Hall and another 'point-o-meter' the Wildboys scoring 7 unanswered tries against the Shebeen Boys.

The log after Week 5:


There were too many good tries this week to try and rate some higher than others and it was very difficult to single out a specific side to award the honours of team of the week. With that in mind Clarendon must walk away with more than special mention as they really were brilliant in never giving up against a very strong Ubumbo side and making it a contest all the way to the final whistle.

"Player of the Night" however, definitely goes to the exciting supersub inside centre for Ubumbo, Lebo. The guy came on and showed some individual brilliance with a pace to burn, feet and skill. The crowd weren't joking when they referred to him as SA answer to Luke McAlister.

The Warren "Bad Boys" Brosnihan commentary award:
There were multiply entrants last night and I think they should all humbly accept their award and spend next Wednesday night wondering the Green Mile alone repeating their comments to themselves. If you said one of these, please don't come back for Week 6, because rugby is policed by laws not rules.
- The ref doesn't know the rules...
- The ref forgot his rule book!
- Atleast the refs last week knew the rules..!
- Come one ref, is passing forward a new rule?








Monday, May 21, 2007

Round 2 -

The first Round was a success and now we have reshuffled the pools with a side from every tier in each pool and we are repeating the process but this time for money!

So the top 2 sides from each pool at the end of Round 2 (ie: after 4 weeks of rugby) will advance into the Cup finals whereas the bottom 2 will advance to the Bowl finals.

So basically, you need to win twice in 3 games to advance into the top 8.

Let's get ready to do this...

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Wrap Week 4:

Unfortunately I have to keep this brief as I have an important pending date with a very important female lecturer. I know you understand.

Week 4 wrapped up the Round 1 last night and did so in fine style. The rugby was of an impressive standard with all sides coming to the party. If I use another cliché I might as well be Graeme Smith. Here are last night’s results:

The scoreboard tells a story that not even the embellish-king Dan Brown can expand on and judging by the amount of support that was up on the Mile last night I figure if you reading this you not looking for a match report since everyone was there to witness the events.

Okay, truth be told there were plenty blonde angels there not looking to see which team was playing the best pattern but if they didn’t come for the rugby they’re in bed at home right now recovering from what they did go for…

The end of Week 4 left the log standings looking like this after Round1:


We’re now ready to move onto Round 2 with the logs reshuffled. As explained ad nauseam, the logs are still premised on the same format of each consisting of a 1st rated, 2nd rated, 3rd rated and a reach for a dream team:


The fixtures for week 5 (which is next week by the way) will be out soon, but if your eagerness to work it out outweighs my inclination to take up my rendezvous with said female lecturer then I can tell you that it is the same format from week 1. Ie: 1 plays 4, 2 plays 3.

Here is more info for all you ESPN stats sluts out there. Since we advocate running rugby with a modicum of strong defense I think this table speaks volumes:



As mentioned the contests last night were fierce and physical. The “Hit of the Night” goes to the imposing inside centre figure of Scotty Dyson for the Panthers. If there was a silver award he would take that too, actually both his hits would tie for Gold. He smacked the counterattacking Baabaas fullback with such force the ref mentioned it at halftime and a 1st year girl was seen crying behind the floodlights pole she was in such shock.

“Try of the Night” has to go to the podium because there were so many:
3.) Brad Milne streaking away for a 55m against the run of play try for the Cobras that looked to sway the tide of the game against Ubumbo.
2.) The Clarendon right winger who scored a sick, game winning buzzer beater at the death to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Smuts.
1.) Ubumbo’s 2nd try. From where I was standing all I could see was the back of 400 supporters standing on the field but judging by their reaction the importance of the try to comeback and seal a draw spoke volumes. If the sides meet again it will be a cracker.
Special mention to Ikhaya has they actually scored a try, and then scored another….!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007


Week 4:

Lock up your daughters, switch on your PVR, sit down and shut up. It’s game time people…

The Green Mile is going to be rugby havoc this evening with 3 Pools playing the last game in this Round to determine the pools for the next 4 weeks of rugby. It is still earlier stages in the competition but ask the Crusaders how important these stages are if you want a home semi final.

Here are tonight’s match ups:


This is a blue print of how the Pools will reshuffle after this Round. As you will see Pool W has already booked their round place and now it is up to the rest to determine where they fall. Now lets given thanks to the weather gods for coming to tonight’s party!

See you on the Mile…

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Wrap Round 1: Week 3

If you braved the icy weather to come see what was out and about up on the Green Mile last night your hunger for some impressive rugby action was certainly satisfied. Last night we witnessed 6 internal league games and two further friendly games between UCT u20s and the new WP Academy sides.



Rugby was up in the air and everyone was breathing hard...

Despite it only been Week 3 teams had thrown off the preseason jersey and were looking far sharper and better prepared. Teams also had to trade in the multistud option for the more effective 6 stud stewel as Cape Town has definitely taken a wintery turn and the conditions under foot aren't exactly akin to playing Craven Week in Rustenburg.

For Pool W it was a massive week with them not having had their bye yet the log at the end of Week 3 would determine their positions in Round 2. The top of the table clash was a tight affair with incumbent A League champs the Nadoes keeping out their incumbent B League counterparts the Wildboys 8-3. Contesting for an important 3rd place in the pool the once formiddable Leo Marquard Lions scrapped together a side and a victoy beating the Spanners 17-5.

With Pool X having a bye week, that left Pool Y and Pool Z to play their 2nd games. The in-form Wadda Purple Cobras side took apart the hapless defence of the Turtles side winning 29-0. In the other game, Ubumbo continued their attacking form of rugby outscroing the Ikhaya Shake and Bake Day Residence by 7 tries to zero to claim an important bonus point. Incidentally this pool is responsible for the lack of match day programmes being printed as the document centre doesn't have A3 paper. A formal request has been made for them to shorten their names like Sri Lankan cricketers do.
Pool Z was tighter than a 2nd years leotard with Kopano taking an important victory against Clarendon 7-5 to cement themselves firmly in 2nd place to hopefully springboard themselves toward the top 8. The new comes Eastern Cape 2 Rios were looking in impressive form needing no introduction into UCT Internal League as they lead their pool after a 2nd victory from two, this one against Smuts 17- 0.

I am afraid this weeks wrap is just about the numbers but I guess they are paramount at this stage. Having said that quick acknowledgement must be made regarding the refs that so selflessly take time out to run around in the pouring rain to officiate our fixtures. We are extremely lucky to have Matt so well connected at the ref's society to get us ref's of these calibre.

Now just because someone is off a high calibre doesn't mean they are going to perform well. Just ask Kobus Van der Merwe about the side he coaches and you will get what I mean. I just want you all to remember two things. Firstly, out of all the Internal League games I have watched, I have never seen a ref drop a ball, miss a tackle, be too lazy to hit a ruck, thrown a ball skew in the lineout or collapse a maul. I did see a ref make a tackle once but that was just as much the fault of the Rochester flyhalf as it was his. The second thing is that if the ref was as good as Mark Lawrence he would be going to France in September, and if you were as good a player as he was a ref, then you'd also be going...


Look forward to a post soon about how the Pools for Round 2 are going to be organised. Once week 4 is completed we reshuffle the pools to go for weeks 5 until 8 before splitting in the quarter finals. So watch out for the new pool draw and for the draw of which pools from Round 2 will meet in the quarter. It has to be done UEFA style otherwise it wouldn't be fair...

Check you on the mile...

Monday, May 07, 2007

Kick-off

Here we are back for week 3. The wrap for Week 2 wasn’t forth coming after a key link in our journalistic chain was overseas, (you need a passport to visit Potch) but we are back in action for the highlites of what promises to be an exciting round this week.

Eight sides will be looking to play their 3rd game out of 4 for Round 1 and a victory will certainly be needed to squeeze your way to the top of your pool for the upcoming reshuffle.

There was a certain amount of confusion last week with some managers being unaware or just plain illiterate to not realise a round of matches was never scheduled due to Intervarsity over the weekend. Hence a few sides arrived on Wednesday expecting a game. So to once again smooth out the bumps of confusion that persists in the minds of some.

This Wednesday is Week 3 of Round 1:

The remainder of the scheduled fixtures:


Bring your lady friends, this week is looking promising…