CURRIE CUP PREVIEW: Fewer games means every one matters

The concept of less is more that has been adopted for this year’s Carling Currie Cup will have been welcomed by many but one of the consequences of the single round competition for teams and coaches is that it means every game matters that little bit more.

When there’s a double round, and 12 or 14 matches in the league phase as there has sometimes been in the past, you have plenty of time to correct after a poor start.

But that won’t be the case this season, with just six matches remaining after this weekend’s opening round that starts with the Airlink Pumas hosting Suzuki Griquas in Nelspruit on Friday night.

That is a repeat of the 2022 final and the ADT Fidelity Lions game against the Hollywoodbets Sharks is a repeat of last year’s final, won at the death by the Sharks, so there is plenty of recent history adding interest to the matches that will start this year’s competition.

And of course you can add to that the north/south showdown between DHL Western Province and the Vodacom Blue Bulls in Cape Town in the late game on Saturday.

The Boland Cavaliers also make their return to the Premier Division when they host the Toyota Free State Cheetahs on Sunday to complete the line-up and there should be much interest directed at how they go against the 2023 champions.

SMALLER UNIONS WILL WANT TO LAY DOWN A MARKER

When it comes to how the teams representing unions that do not double as Vodacom United Rugby Championship franchises will shape up this year it is a case of the proof of the pudding being in the eating.

Meaning we will only know when the competition gets underway as at this stage you’d have to say there’s a lot that is unknown.

It is true though that the smaller unions will have been building towards this Currie Cup longer than the others and will have the advantage of having played together during the SA Cup.

That was won this year by the Pumas in a final against Griquas played at Mbombela Stadium, which is where the two teams clash on Friday.

What we do know judging from the squads that have been announced for the domestic competition so far is that the URC unions are mostly adding an even bigger development angle to their approach than they did last season.

There were only a few players in the Sharks squad for instance who played URC rugby last season and even fewer that were part of last year’s Currie Cup triumph named in the match day 23 for the trip to Johannesburg to play the team they beat in the 2024 final.

And the Lions, who maybe erred a bit and compromised their URC campaign by fielding too many players who also play in the URC in their successful drive to that final, where they were only beaten by a freakish long-distance penalty from their former stalwart Jaden Hendrikse after the hooter, don’t look like they are repeating that mistake this year.

The experienced Jaco Visagie will lead the team in the competition, but most of the players around him will be young players who have seen only minimal or no action in the URC.

The 54-man WP squad announced earlier in the week has a smattering of experienced players like Scarra Ntubeni and Courtnall Skosan, but it is also mostly made up of young players with eight of the winning Junior Bok squad included in the group plus some amateur club players who are presumably getting a chance to bid to join the professional ranks.

BULLS LOOK THE MOST LOADED SQUAD

The most loaded team in terms of experience is the Bulls, who are led by former Stormers flanker Nama Xaba and includes players like former Sharks Currie Cup and URC flyhalf Boeta Chamberlain, Junior Pokomela and former Stormers and Lions Bok Marvin Orie, who has returned to the union where he started his professional rugby.

There are though six Junior Boks in the wider squad plus other young players and having experienced players in the group does not undermine development but rather facilitates it provided it is not overdone. If you only fielded Under-21 players in your team, and the other sides did the same, then the Currie Cup might just as well be another under-21 competition to go along with the official one. What would be the point of that in terms of learnings?

We haven’t seen a WP team yet but gathering from the names on the Bulls team sheet, with Orie for instance being joined in the second row by Sintu Manjezi, the visitors should start as favourites in Cape Town. With the Lions/Sharks game it is less clear although the hosts should be packing more experience. The Sharks coach JP Pietersen appeared to acknowledge that when he spoke in the team announcement about aiming “to stay in the fight”.

The Sharks do have an excellent captain in Nick Hatton, who led superbly last season. In 2024 the Sharks started slowly, losing their first three games. They can’t afford to do that this year, with the single round, and that’s really what makes this season’s edition of the oldest provincial rugby competition on the planet so much more enticing than last year’s.

Players who want to make their mark though aren’t going to be able to dally over the production of eye-catching performances, they are going to have to be sharp from the off.

With the Pumas, who signalled their intent by luring Willie Engelbrecht back to Nelspruit from Cape Town, and Griquas, who these days are boosted by their twinning agreement with WP, having built up quite a rivalry in their quest to establish smaller union boasting rights, there should be a lot of intensity and competitive edge from the first game right through to Sunday’s match in Wellington.

Carling Currie Cup first round fixtures

Airlink Pumas v Suzuki Griquas (Nelspruit, Friday 7:30pm)

ADT Fidelity Lions v Hollywoodbets Sharks (Johannesburg, Saturday 3pm)

DHL Western Province v Vodacom Blue Bulls (Cape Town, 5:10pm)

Sanlam Boland Cavaliers v Toyota Free State Cheetahs (Wellington, 3pm)