Lions champs disgusted with Predator draw
Poorte in pool of death for extended Predator League.
Golden Lions Pirates Grand Challenge title holders Roodepoort are down in the dumps after the pools for the cross-border Predator League competition were announced.
Vice-president in charge of coaching and development, Faris Sader says, “I’m absolutely shocked that three of the strongest clubs in Gauteng are in one pool. This is not the way it should be.
“There most certainly will be two university sides in the final if you consider the way the pools have been set out. We are not happy with this.
“As a reward the top teams of every Union should have been given two home games and one away game,” Faris believes.
Matches will start on Saturday 20 July with 16 teams spilt into four pools (A to D).
Group A consists of three Union champions namely Roodepoort (Golden Lions Pirates Grand Challenge), Brakpan (Valke Peregrine League) and Tuks (Blue Bulls Carlton League) with Naka Bulls (7th Blue Bulls Carlton League) clearly the minnows.
Poorte will have only one home game out of their three fixtures and that will be against Naka Bulls (Saturday 20 July). They have two away fixtures against the big guns Tuks (Saturday 27 July) and Brakpan (Saturday 3 August).
Group B sees favourites NWU-Pukke, which is considered the top team from the Leopards Union up against Centurion (2nd Blue Bulls Carlton League), Raiders (4th Lions Pirates Grand Challenge) and Boksburg (2nd Valke Peregrine League).
Group C will be a tight tussle as any of the four teams has the potential to progress with the likes of Wits University (3rd Lions Grand Challenge), Rustenburg Impala (Leopards Union), Oostelikes Eagles (3rd Blue Bulls Carlton League) and Springs (3rd Valke Peregrine League).
Group D is made up of two Lions Grand Challenge teams namely Pirates that finished fifth in the Lions Pirates Grand Challenge and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) (2nd Lions Pirates Grand Challenge) along with two Blue Bulls Carlton League teams, being Pretoria Police (4th) and Harlequins (5th).
Pieter Visser, club manager of the Golden Lions Rugby Union (GLRU) mentioned that there is a chance that the draw could change and that one club, in particular Roodepoort was extremely unhappy.
