The second game in the Pirates Grand Challenge resumed on April 21 after a two-week pause of mourning for the mother of the nation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
The game continued at the Bill Jardine Stadium which is home ground to Raiders Rugby Club and was the first game this year on home soil.
The home team found themselves against a well-oiled Wits machine who have recently returned from Varsity Cup after being knocked out in the semi-finals.
The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) team wasted no time as they made their mark in the first stages of the game, leaving Raiders to play catch up the entire match.
As Raiders players put their all into the game, it was unfortunate to say that the Wits team made them work hard and still left a gap on the scoreboard. Wits Rugby team finished the game with a well-deserved 40 – 26.
Public relations manager for Raiders, Thaakir Dawood said: “These guys are almost halfway in their season and we still trying to find ourselves. We still a bit rusty but we will surely get where we want to be soon.
“As Dawood explained that they call their players (Raiders players) the “working class heroes” because players work regular nine-to-five jobs and then still put their all into practice and the games.
“He went on to explain that some players may look physically conditioned because of the hard labour, lack of nutritional meals and their disadvantaged backgrounds.
“You always find us at the backfoot. When we play against the university guys it’s really challenging because we don’t have the number of hours for our training as they do and like I said the nutrition is one of our biggest issues.
“We at least won our first game against Pirates so we sitting now at third on the log. Things are still looking positive for us and we can still get the Gold Cup again this year,” concluded Dawood.
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