Cape Town set for some classics...

This week’s Steinhoff Koshuis fixtures at UCT are set to produce a fantastic night of rugby. With six rugby games to be played on Wednesday evenings, fans should be treated to quite a spectacle.

The headline fixture this week would have to be surprise giant-killers, Leo Marquad, against the Nadoes in what should be an epic encounter.

Since the league’s inception at UCT, the Nadoes have been the team to beat, with their awesome aura of invincibility doing more damage to opposing teams that their rugby.

Marquad, however, are fresh off their surprise win against Panthers, the side that lost narrowly to Nadoes in the semifinal of last year’s tournament, and will not lie down to the Nadoes’ free-running brand.

Marquad proved in their first game that they have the players and the determination to beat any team on the night and they should prove a sterner test to the Nadoes mettle than Ikhaya House did last week. Provided they don’t let the prospect of playing the Nadoes daunt them, I see no reason why the ‘Kings of Lower Campus’ couldn’t pull off another surprise victory.

Also in action this week are incumbent champions, the Cobras. It is fair to say that this year, fresh off of the Steinhoff Koshuisrugby Championships; the Cobras are approaching the tournament with a very professional air and a massive squad. The Cobras will be playing Kopano in both side’s first matches of the season.

Kopano, once the top Residence side on campus, have had a torrid time in recent years and the 2009 squad will be looking to turn things around, perhaps by pulling off their own David and Goliath style killing ala Leo Marquad in the first match.

But Kopano are, as yet, an unknown quantity this year though, as we saw with Smuts and Marquad, the Res sides are not prepared to lie down for the sake of a few teams reputations.

If Kopano can play with determination and focus on their shifting defence, we may see them nullify the Cobras’ potent backs – leaving room for them to exploit the Cobras forwards who, last year, were perceived the weakest point in the team.

The fixture should make for another exciting game though, if only for the fact that it will allow the teams to get a measure of the Cobras yardstick to see how the top teams are panning out this year.

Full UCT Koshuis fixtures for this week:
Cobras v Kopano
Wildboys v College
Nadoes v Marquad
Panthers v Ikhaya
Ubumbo v Turtles
Spanners v Clarendon

By Rory Holmes