By ROSS ROCHE
A gourmet feast of rugby is on the menu today as the University Sport South Africa (Ussa) Rugby Week kicks off around East London today.
A total of 20 universities, 28 teams and close to 1 000 rugby players and management will be at various venues as the teams contest four divisions.
Walter Sisulu University are hosting this year’s competition with Border Rugby.
“Border Rugby is extremely happy to be helping to host an event of this magnitude,” said Border Rugby’s commercial and marketing manager Akhona Mgijima. “Something like this only comes around once in a decade and to see the wealth of talent from all over the country is an honour and privilege.
“Everything is in place, we have tried to assist Walter Sisulu as much as we can. A lot of local clubs have also come on board and assisted us and we are hoping for the best over what should be a great week of rugby.”
The four sections to be battled out are the A section, which features mostly Varsity Cup sides playing for the Cup, and the B sec-
tion with the Varsity Shield teams playing for the Shield.
The C section is a promotion section with the winner of it possibly getting the chance to play in next year’s Varsity Shield competition.
The D section is for smaller universities and second teams to get a chance to play some rugby as well.
The main A section features a host of impressive varsity sides and looking to make a push for glory on the local Eastern Cape front, will be the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) side.
Reigning Varsity Cup champs North West University Pukke, 2015 Ussa Rugby Week champs University of Johannesburg, Stellenbosch Maties, University of Free State Kovsies, University of Pretoria Tuks, University of Cape Town and the Central University of Technology will all be battling it out for top honours along with NMMU.
NMMU couldn’t have asked for a sterner test first up when they take on Pukke at 10.10am at Old Selbornians. “The boys are looking good and are ready for the week. I’m excited to see what we can do on the field,” said NMMU coach David Maidza.
“It is hard to judge how good some of the teams coming to this week are as a lot of teams use it as a chance to blood some of their youngsters, as we will be doing, so we will only really know the strength of the teams once we meet them on the field.
“We do want to give a good account of ourselves over the week and the guys will be giving their all in every game,” Maidza said.
Today, three main venues will be used to showcase the 14 games.
Old Selbornians, with their A and B fields, will feature games from 8.30am this morning until 3.10pm while Buffalo Park have three games scheduled from 8.30am to 1.30pm.
The Buffalo City Stadium will then hold a game on the main field at 2pm and also a game on its B field at the same time.
The opening ceremony will take place there at 4pm and the main game of the day – between WSU A and Mangosuthu University of Technology – will kick off at 4.30pm.
Titans meet in big games today
A gourmet feast of rugby is on the menu today as the University Sport South Africa (Ussa) Rugby Week kicks off around East London today.
A total of 20 universities, 28 teams and close to 1 000 rugby players and management will be at various venues as the teams contest four divisions.
Walter Sisulu University are hosting this year’s competition with Border Rugby.
“Border Rugby is extremely happy to be helping to host an event of this magnitude,” said Border Rugby’s commercial and marketing manager Akhona Mgijima. “Something like this only comes around once in a decade and to see the wealth of talent from all over the country is an honour and privilege.
“Everything is in place, we have tried to assist Walter Sisulu as much as we can. A lot of local clubs have also come on board and assisted us and we are hoping for the best over what should be a great week of rugby.”
The four sections to be battled out are the A section, which features mostly Varsity Cup sides playing for the Cup, and the B sec-
tion with the Varsity Shield teams playing for the Shield.
The C section is a promotion section with the winner of it possibly getting the chance to play in next year’s Varsity Shield competition.
The D section is for smaller universities and second teams to get a chance to play some rugby as well.
The main A section features a host of impressive varsity sides and looking to make a push for glory on the local Eastern Cape front, will be the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) side.
Reigning Varsity Cup champs North West University Pukke, 2015 Ussa Rugby Week champs University of Johannesburg, Stellenbosch Maties, University of Free State Kovsies, University of Pretoria Tuks, University of Cape Town and the Central University of Technology will all be battling it out for top honours along with NMMU.
NMMU couldn’t have asked for a sterner test first up when they take on Pukke at 10.10am at Old Selbornians. “The boys are looking good and are ready for the week. I’m excited to see what we can do on the field,” said NMMU coach David Maidza.
“It is hard to judge how good some of the teams coming to this week are as a lot of teams use it as a chance to blood some of their youngsters, as we will be doing, so we will only really know the strength of the teams once we meet them on the field.
“We do want to give a good account of ourselves over the week and the guys will be giving their all in every game,” Maidza said.
Today, three main venues will be used to showcase the 14 games.
Old Selbornians, with their A and B fields, will feature games from 8.30am this morning until 3.10pm while Buffalo Park have three games scheduled from 8.30am to 1.30pm.
The Buffalo City Stadium will then hold a game on the main field at 2pm and also a game on its B field at the same time.
The opening ceremony will take place there at 4pm and the main game of the day – between WSU A and Mangosuthu University of Technology – will kick off at 4.30pm.
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