There’s no better way to start off your weekend than with a North vs. South Currie Cup Derby on a Friday night! Western Province head to Loftus for the first of two Currie Cup semi-finals taking place this weekend.
Western Province
It could be because the Sharks didn’t have anything to play for after the Griquas and Pumas draw, or it could be because Western Province knew exactly what had to be done as they headed into their clash last week. But what is important is that the men from Cape Town managed to sneak into the semi-finals by the skin of their teeth thanks to a bonus point victory in Durban last week. WP were big underdogs going into the clash, but they gave it their all in what could have potentially been their last game of the season. It only took seven minutes for the visitors to score their first try courtesy of Dan du Plessis, who followed up with another before half-time. Despite trailing at half-time WP showed that they meant business by scoring again right after the break. They ended up with five tries to the three from the Sharks and won the match comfortably 35-24.
Last week was the third away win for WP this season, their first coming against a weaker Bulls team in Round 1 and the other against the Pumas in Round 7.
Bulls
With a top of the table spot pretty much already guaranteed the Bulls knew that any result against the Cheetahs would do. Coming off of a bye and having the knowledge of this more than likely affected their performance against the Cheetahs negatively, but they managed to scrape home as winners in the end. The Bulls were first on the scoreboard thanks to a try from Marco Jansen van Vuren, but the Cheetahs managed to keep things tight and the two sides went into the break with the score tied. The Bulls went 15 points clear with just 13 minutes left and despite a late surge by Free State they managed to hang on for a 39-36 win.
Although it was an unconvincing win, it was a win nonetheless and it rounded off a good season for the Bulls which saw them only losing two matches, one to WP with their second team and the other in Durban to the Sharks. At this stage of the competition they are firm favourites to lift the trophy.
Prediction
Although the Bulls are clear favourites in this one I don’t think I can completely count out WP. We got to see how well WP can perform under pressure and I believe we will see another hard-fought performance from them. It’s happened many times in the past that a team has had an excellent regular season only to struggle in the play-off stage of the competition and it could very well happen again. I still think that the Bulls are going to win this one but I don’t see them covering the handicap of -10.5 points. There is a big possibility that last week’s relaxed attitude towards their match could impact their performance for this match. The Bulls were very good with their rolling maul last week, but I believe there is a chance that WP can beat them at their own game this time around. So I am going to have a little dab at WP catching the Bulls napping at lineout time and Scarra Ntubeni to score the first try of the match. I also like the value on Sergeal Peterson to score a try for the away side.
BetOlimp Best Bets