Loftus the battlefield, Carling Currie Cup the reward

South Africa’s oldest and premier provincial competition, the Currie Cup, will draw to a close this weekend when the Vodacom Bulls face the Cell C Sharks at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

These two teams were the strongest throughout the competition with the Bulls clinching the top spot on the log with 43 points from 13 matches played. The Sharks ended second on the log, having accumulated 39 points from their 13 matches. This year’s final will be the first one to be contested at Loftus since 2009.

The last time these two teams battled it out in a Currie Cup final was in 2008 in Durban. The Sharks won that battle, beating the Bulls by 14 points to nine.

Semi-finals:

The Bulls hosted the Lions in their semi-final encounter over the weekend, which they won 26-21.

The Sharks travelled to Cape Town to face the Western Province, in which might be the last ever professional rugby match to be played at the stadium. The Sharks’ defensive prowess saw them beat Province 19-9.

Match Officials

SA Rugby Communications announced the match officials who will take charge of the encounter. Jaco Peyper will enter a select group as he becomes only the fifth referee to hold the whistle in five or more Currie Cup Finals. He follows suit of André Watson (7), Jonathan Kaplan (6), Steve Strydom (6) and Freek Burger (5).

Peyper will be assisted by AJ Jacobs and Griffin Colby, while Marius van der Westhuizen has been selected as the Television Match Official (TMO). Experienced Rasta Rasivhenge has been named as the reserve referee for the match, which is set to kick off at 15:00

Final

According to the Bulls’ President, Willem Strauss, the Pretoria-based outfit’s record in Currie Cup finals at Loftus is a winning ratio of 90%, having played 17, won 15 and lost only two finals. “Loftus is a massive ally! The two losses were huge upsets in 2005 against Rassie Erasmus’s Cheetahs and in 1990 against Natal,” he added.

The battlefield is set; who will be the Champion Within?