Pukke embrace favourite tag

VARSITY CUP BUILD-UP:  Going into the final round of the league phase of the FNB Varsity Cup, FNB Maties and FNB UP-Tuks looked odds-on favourites to set up a fourth final between them – but FNB NWU Pukke put paid to such presumptive talk.

Maties have beaten all-comers this season, while UP-Tuks finished second with a week to spare and laid down a marker when beating upcoming semifinal opponents Pukke 28-0 in Round Seven – away in Potchefstroom to boot.

However, Pukke have followed that loss by totting up two 50-plus scorelines while beating FNB CUT Ixias 60-7 and FNB Wits 74-15 this past Monday.

Jonathan Mokuena’s boys could barely have sent a stronger message that the semifinals won’t be a procession – not forgetting they were finalists in 2018.

“Yes, we said it’s our dress rehearsal for the semifinals and we said we have to get confidence out of this match and we did,” Pukke captain Louis van der Westhuizen said in the aftermath of their dismantling of Wits.

Mindful of the fact that they’ll be travelling to Tuks Stadium for the second versus third opening semifinal, ‘Chucky’ was careful to pay their opponents their due.

“Tuks is a good side, a well-coached side and we’ll have to go back to the drawing board to fix any mistakes we made,” he said.

As it happens, there’s a rather interesting quirk to the NWU Pukke rivalry with UP-Tuks. While both teams have won seven of their previous Varsity Cup clashes, the unusual fact is that the away team has won nine of those 14 clashes (10 if you consider that Tuks were nominally the away team when they met at Outeniqua Park in the inaugural season in 2008).

In recent times, the visitors have triumphed in five of their last six meetings – including their 2015 semifinal meeting when Pukke pipped UP-Tuks 29-28 in Pretoria. A good omen, perhaps, for the men in purple-and-white come Monday at Tuks Stadium.

Not so fast, Van der Westhuizen suggested: “I think we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves… there’s still a lot of work to be done.”