Sanlam Boland Cavaliers head coach Hawies Fourie expects his team to get a taste of what it will be like to play in the Currie Cup later on this year when they face the Airlink Pumas in this coming weekend’s SA Cup semi-final.
The Cavaliers beat the Eastern Province Elephants 36-22 in their final league game this past weekend and have a short time to prepare for the knockout clash that is scheduled for Friday, 19:00 in the Mbombela Stadium.
Massive Challenge
They face a Pumas side who have won all nine of their league fixtures, and Fourie knows his team will need to make a massive step-up in physicality and intensity to topple opposing coach Jimmy Stonehouse’s charges.
According to Fourie the win against the Elephants was far from a pretty and convincing performance by his men.
We are glad about the win over the weekend, but it was not an easy game. The circumstances were difficult with a strong wind blowing throughout the game, and it made it difficult to control the ball, win our lineouts, and to kick from hand.
It meant that we had to adapt, and, to my liking, we made too many handling errors in the first half and needlessly conceded possession. In the second half, we conceded too many penalties, and we could not take advantage of having the wind at our backs by trying to pin the opposition in their half of the field, due to those penalties.
It was far from a pretty performance, but we did enough to end amongst the top four teams in the SA Cup and qualify.
Monkey Off Boland’s Backs
Albeit the struggles in Gqeberha, Fourie is glad to have the monkey off their backs in terms of Currie Cup promotion, with the Cavaliers now fully focused on going out and testing themselves against a Pumas team that are Currie Cup regulars and have even won provincial rugby’s biggest prize three seasons ago.
Of the challenge that awaits his men in Nelspruit, Fourie says:
[Top four] was our goal from the beginning of the season and now that we have qualified for the Currie Cup Premier Division I am immensely proud of the players and the effort everyone has put in during the season.
We have reaped the rewards of our hard work, and from the very start, it was a team effort where we relied on all the members in our squad. There were a lot of injuries throughout the competition and there are still players that will be out for a while but we could rely on every member of the squad. Now it is time to go and get back on the saddle where playing in a SA Cup semi-final and [hopefully] a final will be on the same level as playing in the Currie Cup Premier Division.
We will need to improve in quite a few areas of our game if we want to compete against those teams and it is the type of games that will show us what lies in wait ahead of the start of the Currie Cup campaign in July.
Cavas Want To Inspire
The Boland boss, who coached the Toyota Cheetahs to a Currie Cup title in 2023, says he is looking forward to returning to the top provincial competition with a Cavaliers side that last played against the country’s best in 2016.
We don’t just want to be a team that is playing in a Currie Cup but one that competes and especially put those teams that will be travelling to play us in Wellington under huge pressure.
We know we can expect a lot of support from the Boland community and we want to go out and make them proud to be associated with the Sanlam Boland Cavaliers and inspire youngsters at every level of the game within the boundaries of the union. So they can aspire to play on the same level.
In the second SA Cup semi-final on Saturday, the Suzuki Griquas tackle the Toyota Cheetahs from 15:00 at the Suzuki Stadium in Kimberley.
