Progress head into Gold Cup
Uitenhage team want to keep winning as they represent EP in national tournament
PROGRESS will be looking to keep the winning momentum going when they represent the Eastern Province Rugby Union in the upcoming Gold Cup kicking off next month.
Leading clubs from three Southern African countries will clash for honours simultaneously in the highly anticipated Gold Cup tournament.
Progress face a tough away assignment in their first game when they come up against Tygerberg.
Progress coach Hashim Dirk said: “We are planning to do even better in this Gold Cup after winning the Grand Challenge Cup trophy.”
“We hope the efforts in our training sessions become fruitful and we make our rugby union proud.”
The fixtures for the South African rugby flagship three-nation champion league for nonuniversity clubs will see Windhoek, Harare, Rustenburg, Cape Town, East London, Welkom and Orkney hosting first-round matches.
Gold Cup champions Newrak Rustenburg Impala aim to defend their title, starting with a tough home fixture against Recall Security Bloemfontein Police.
Last year’s runners-up, DirectAxis False Bay, will host the Boland champions, yet to be decided, in what should be a thrilling Western Province derby in Cape Town.
The spotlight will fall on the Mother City even more on the opening weekend, with wildcards Tygerberg also at home to EPRU underdogs Progress.
Meanwhile, in East London, fellow wildcards Swallows host Old Selbornians in the iMonti derby at BCM Stadium.
This match will be the curtain-raiser to the Border Bulldogs versus Boland Cavaliers Currie Cup first division match.
Gold Cup newcomers Vaal Reefs will host Arc Rugby and Northam Platinum Rhinos in the mining towns of Welkom and Orkney respectively, while Raiders and Go Nutz College Rovers will be travelling to Harare and Windhoek to face Old Georgians and debutants FNB Western Suburbs respectively.
The Gold Cup will run from September 9 to October 29 and will have a similar format to that of the World Cup – four pools of five teams each.
Clubs will play two home and two away matches over the fiveweek duration of the pool stages.
The fixtures for round one (September 9 and 10) are: Pool A: Newrak Rustenburg Impala v Recall Security Bloemfontein Police (Rustenburg); Human Auto Welkom v Sasol Hydra-Arc Rugby (Welkom) Pool B: Speedy Car Sales Vaal Reefs v Northam Platinum Rhinos (Orkney); Old Georgians v Raiders (Harare) Pool C: Tygerberg v Progress (Florida Park, Cape Town); Swallows v Mike Pendock Motors Old Selbornians (BCM Stadium, East London) Pool D: DirectAxis False Bay v Boland champ (Cape Town); FNB Western Suburbs v Go Nutz College Rovers (Windhoek)