Winter has come and gone as we will be celebrating the start of spring tomorrow.
And what a season it was.
Club rugby fans all over the Mother City couldn’t have asked for a better finish to the 2017 league phase of the campaign than what they got this past weekend.
It was bloodier than the final episode of Season 7 in Game of Thrones – ask anyone who’s read the newspapers in recent days or were at the match between Violets and Villagers on Saturday.
Rugby giants and midgets collided in a match that ultimately saw Maties TKO Primrose Floyd Mayweather style (131-0) before the encounter was called off because it was getting out of hand.
What a way to be crowned champions.
Personally I’ve never witnessed anything like that.
I suppose if rugby was officiated more like boxing, Maties’ players would not have been entirely match fit even at the end of the season.
They put 100 past almost every second team in the league.
I hope they took it easy on the boys from Brackenfell in the final match of the season last night.
Knowing coach Hawies Fourie’s team has no chill this was probably not the case.
Anyway, yes, Maties reclaimed the crown they lost to False Bay last season and are deserved champions of the Western Province Super League A.
Having lost their title, the Bay will not be too unhappy with second place though.
It was already confirmed before the final round of the league phase that Pniel
Villagers (without a single win this year) and Primrose would play their rugby in Super League B next year.
The Roses, though, would not have liked their SLA exit to be quite as harsh as the drubbing they suffered at the hands of the students.
With the league season now a thing of the past, teams will shift their attention to the President’s Cup.
In this weekend’s quarterfinal, Hamiltons will host Durbell while Tygerberg will face fellow tigers, UCT, at Florida Park.
With one eye on the Gold Cup which starts next week, you wonder if the Tiere will be playing their strongest side against Ikeys.
It wouldn’t make sense.
An injury or two will be a big setback as they prepare to play Progress Uitenhage in the national tournament.
False Bay are the other team from Province in the Gold Cup, but having already booked their place in the President’s Cup semifinal after finishing second in the league, their boys can sit with their feet up this weekend.
Hammies, meanwhile, should get the better of Durbell at home.
Team P W L D BP Pts
1 Maties 13 13 0 0 875 64
2 False Bay 14 12 1 1 411 63
3 Hamiltons 14 10 3 1 278 53
4 Tygerberg 14 9 5 0 133 47
5 UCT 14 9 5 0 89 46
6 Durbell 14 9 5 0 86 46
7 Victorians 14 7 7 0 58 41
8 UniMil 14 7 6 1 -38 41
9 UWC 14 6 8 0 -88 33
10 Brackenfell 13 6 7 0 42 30
11 Belhar 14 5 8 1 -161 29
12 Walmers 14 5 9 0 -197 28
13 Ntk 14 3 11 0 -312 18
14 Primrose 14 1 13 0 -379 9
15 Pniel 14 0 14 0 -797 -2