Zim roped into Challenge fold

WHILE it may have picked up an extra team in the form of former Bok coach Peter de Villiers’ Zimbabwe, the SuperSport Rugby Challenge returns as a much more streamlined competition in its third year running. Zimbabwe returning to compete in a South African competition for the first time since they played in the Currie Cup in the early 80s, and the 16 teams being divided into North and South pools of eight each – instead of a Central group as well, as was the case in the past – are the main differences in this year’s tournament. The return to the fold of the Southern African neighbours is the big talking point as they join Namibia, which has been part of the competition for as long as it has been around, in an arrangement which will be different to the plane-hopping Welwitschias. Led by the charismatic De Villiers, the Zimbabweans – who will go by the name of the Zimbabwe Academy as they obviously won’t be awarding international caps – will base themselves in False Bay, playing two of their three home games there and travelling to Villagers for the third to form part of the league day there. Duane Heath, SA Rugby’s director of the tournament, said the arrival of the Zimbabweans was a bit at short notice, given that they had only made their polite enquiries to play in the competition about a year ago. But that can’t be as short notice as the Border Bulldogs, who must have nine lives when it comes to how fine they cut it in terms of finding ways to compete in this tournament, managing to hang on to their spot after being put under administration late last year. A last-minute bailout by the authorities means they are eligible to play again, after they nearly missed the boat last year because the union’s creditors had applied it be liquidated. Their presence in the competition means they are now in something approaching a mad scramble to assemble a side as all their players had been retrenched under administration, the stipulation being they wouldn’t play pro rugby this year. The streamlined nature of the round-robin tournament sees the eight teams play single round matches against the sides in their pools, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the semifinals, a move which will cut the duration of the competition to nine weeks instead of 12. D’Almeida Stadium (Mossel Bay), Bosman Stadium (Brakpan), Despatch (outside Port Elizabeth) and Callie de Wet Stadium (Robertson) are the new venues to add to Sisa Dukashe Stadium (Mdantsane), Rustenburg Impala (Rustenburg) and Florida Park in Ravensmead (semifinals, Cape Town) as festival hosts.