Diggers Rugby Club had a nailing biting contest with Roodepoort for the Promotion/Relegation Pirates Grand Challenge at Wits.
The day started with the U19s win, 25–19, and the U21s loss, 40–22. The second teams warmed up the crowd with Diggers falling short 24–5. All eyes were in the first team game, and Diggers won 20–19.
Diggers dominant victories grant them a spot in the Castle Lager Pirates Grand Challenge (PGC) next season.
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Andrew Collison, Diggers chairperson, explained that the promotion game was as expected, an absolute nail biter.
“When you’re playing a top league side for the right to play in the top league, both clubs will throw the kitchen sink at it, and that is exactly what happened.”
Diggers dominated the Castle Lager Senior Grand Challenge (SGC) which they also won convincingly before the promotion game.
“The point of winning the SGC was to earn the right to play this fixture versus Roodepoort. Though winning the SGC finals was amazing, this was always the main objective.
This team, the players, the coaches, managers, have all done a phenomenal job this year to reach our goals. It’s beyond exciting for Diggers.”
The PGC is the pinnacle of club rugby in Gauteng. It’s incredibly competitive, full of top sides and universities, and will be a challenge Diggers will be looking too.
“Our goals for our first year in PGC are to be competitive with other clubs and to try end mid-table. Our focus, like the last 2–3 years will be growing our junior to senior conversion of local talent. The lads are full of a deserved confidence which grows their belief in their own abilities, but they also know that this was the first part of the journey for this group. We plan on building as a group and adding talent as we move into this very tough league.”
Collison added that he personally couldn’t contain his own pride in these players, and he knows all of the Diggers family are proud of what they’ve achieved.
“It really is a year of unprecedented growth and success. For the Diggers brand it’ll be a huge boost in many respects. Having said that, I’d like to thank our sponsors, Fidelity ADT, NextDrive, and Powerman, who’ve stood by us whilst we’ve been redeveloping Diggers.”
This promotion comes shortly after Diggers clinched the victory against Germiston and Harlequins and were crowned the champions of the SGC.
Diggers U19 played Harlequins and won 10–8. The U21 won 11–3, second team cruised with 31–19, and the first team won 22–17, all against Germiston.
Diggers hasn’t won the SGC competition since 2015, so winning it in all four categories this year is a big achievement.
“We specifically targeted to win the competition again after rebuilding over the last three years. We revamped our coaching staff with some top club coaches and focused on developing our local young players who have fed into our top teams. For us it says that the work we’ve done at our junior club is starting to pay dividends as young players from Diggers are filtering into our top age groups and we’re working on creating that stream as our backbone for future success.”
He added that they are rebuilding Diggers to be a true community club that serves age groups from five years old till the golden oldies with their senior teams being the pinnacle.
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