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Lions strong favourites for Saturday’s final

rugby15 September 2025 07:00
By:Gavin Rich
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There is an element of farce to it, for they are the only Vodacom URC aligned team that really set out to chase silverware in this year’s Carling Currie Cup, but the ADT Fidelity Lions are on the cusp of getting right what they did last year by getting their hands on the golden trophy.

The Lions will host their second successive domestic final when they play Suzuki Griquas in the decider at Emirates Airlines Park on Saturday.

The semifinal round did what the last round of league play the previous week did - it confirmed the wide chasm that exists between the URC teams and the rest. Last week DHL Western Province (Stormers), the Hollywoodbets Sharks and the Vodacom Bulls went onto URC footing by treating the games as URC warmups and won comfortably against teams that had hitherto been the standouts in the competition.

The Lions have had a URC look to them for a while, since before the other three mentioned teams started using the Currie Cup as a URC warmup, and as a result of that they have the synergy to their game you would anticipate. So Sanlam Boland Kavaliers, who were the talking point of the competition until they lost to the Sharks XV in Pietermaritzburg in their penultimate regular season game, went to Johannesburg with little hope.

Still, it was disappointing to see them execute their defensive game so poorly. Boland had enough of the ball early on and looked promising on attack on a few occasions, but let themselves down with the ease with which they allowed the Lions to run through them en route to a massive halftime lead.

Full marks to Boland for the way they kept trying but every time they threatened to break back the Lions would score again and the Lions fans at Emirates Airlines Park were able to start making their preparations to be back for next week’s final long before the end.

And Griquas, who were involved in a far tougher game in Kimberley against the Toyota Cheetahs than the 20 point winning margin might suggest, will know they will be up against it as they go in quest for their fourth Currie Cup title, the first of which was clinched before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 and the last of which was achieved in Kimberley in the 1970 final.

The sight of the Lions coaches, many of whom weren’t part of the early parts of their team’s Currie Cup campaign, does suggest that union is on a completely different script to the Sharks, WP and Bulls, who used the competition as a development tool only. The Sharks were the team that broke Lions hearts last September with their exciting win, clinched by a last gasp monster Jordan Hendrikse penalty, but they made their intentions of not going all out to defend their title clear from their early selections.

 

 

Ditto WP and also, a little later on, once Johan Ackermann had arrived to take over as the URC coach, the Bulls. However, the Lions clearly need a trophy, and maybe they’ve made the decision to risk the hit that their quest for domestic success could take to their URC challenge, as it did last year, because they know they have little chance of winning a trophy in the inter-continental competition regardless of what they do now.

HORN COULD BE IN BOK SQUAD BY SATURDAY

There is no denying how sharp and impressive they look, and Quan Horn’s form at fullback on the way to his man of the match award should have been noted by Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus, who this week needs to decide what he will do at fullback if, as expected, Aphelele Fassi is ruled out of the remaining Castle Lager Rugby Championship matches with the injury he sustained in the big win over the All Blacks in Wellington.

Horn of course was part of the Bok squad last year and Erasmus did mention a few weeks ago that he’d been intending giving him a chance again and then had to change his plans so it could be that the Lions will be without their No 15 in the final as Horn could well find himself at least in the national squad.

Of course, the key role of the Currie Cup these days is as a development competition, and in that regard the semifinal round saw the Kimberley game deliver on that. The Griquas wing Dylan Maart looks like he would not be out of place playing in the URC, ditto his opposite number at the Cheetahs, Prince Nkimande. Maart scored a brace, both of them spectacular tries, while Nkimane was the loan scorer for the losers in the central union derby.

 

 

No-one is more promising though than the Griquas captain Clebo Dlamini, the impressive tighthead, and don’t bet against him popping up at a franchise like the Sharks during the URC season. Ditto the Boland flyhalf Ashlon Davids, who we hear could be a like for like Stormers replacement for the departed Manie Libbok.

Carling Currie Cup semifinal results

ADT Fidelity Lions 67 Sanlam Boland Kavaliers 19

Suzuki Griquas 25 Toyota Cheetahs 5

Final: ADT Fidelity Lions v Suzuki Griquas (Johannesburg, Saturday)

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