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...