Final teams qualify for 2019 Gold Cup
The 16 teams will be divided into four pools of four, with each team playing three pool matches.
The final list of teams for the 2019 Gold Cup has been confirmed following a nail-biting conclusion to the domestic club season in the Boland town of Worcester on Saturday, 10 November.
An intercept try deep into injury time gave Onelogix United Bulk Worcester Villagers a 36–29 win over defending champions Roses United in the Boland Grand Challenge final. Villagers’ victory brought an end to one of the longest club seasons on record, with both the Boland and Western Province leagues, at one stage threatened with cancellation, only kicking off in June due to the drought that ravaged the Western Cape.
The 2018 season was also one of the most memorable in years, with large crowds commonplace across the country as club and community rugby showed a remarkable resurgence in popularity. The newly crowned Boland champions, established in 1883, will be the oldest club in next year’s Gold Cup.
They will join the 15 other teams already confirmed for South Africa’s flagship national championship for non-university clubs. Among them is our one and only Rototank Roodepoort Rugby Club, which will be making a return to the competition for the first time since 2014, when they managed to earn a highly-respectable second place.
Their qualification came after a resurrection in the Pirates Grand Challenge this year which was second to none after they barely avoided relegation following a torrid 2017 season. Poorte managed to come just one step short of a full-on turnaround of their fortunes, losing out to a last-minute drop goal to North West University in the final of the PGC.
Poorte’s return will be alongside 2017 finalists College Rovers, former champions Newrak Impalas of Rustenburg and Durbanville-Bellville. Changes to domestic and international season calendars will see the Gold Cup henceforth occupy a pre-season slot, with the 2019 edition kicking off on Saturday, 9 March and concluding with the final on Sunday, 14 April.
The Gold Cup’s pre-Easter positioning is also part of a move to create an aligned and clearly defined national club season by 2020, which avoids any overlaps between the Gold Cup and the provincial unions’ club leagues.
The 16 teams will be divided into four pools of four, with each team playing three pool matches. The top two teams in each pool will proceed to the quarterfinals. The pool draw and fixtures will be confirmed by SA Rugby in the next few weeks.
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