House of Paint Premier Division champions InspectaCar College Rovers finished their season on a high with their third stringers beating Richards Bay 22-17 to retain the Findlay Cup and so securing the double for the second year in a row. Thus ended their 2008 campaign with most of the KZNRU silverware on offer firmly secured in their cabinet, having lost out on just one title - that being the Captain Morgan Murray Cup knockout competition won by Thanda Zululand Rhinos for the first time in their 85 year old history.

Rhinos have been an absolute revelation this year and they were the one club that acknowledged that to beat Rovers you didn’t only have to match them on the park but also in the administration of the game itself. Rovers have undeniably been the club the side of the decade in KZN and Rhinos were the one club that embraced that fact and decided to go out and match them. When the Zululand outfit came perilously close to beating the reigning champions at Mick Kelly Park in the first round of the league they knew that if they put in the extra yards they could easily compete with the best and it was exactly what they did, rounding off a most memorable season with celebrations aplenty that followed in Empangeni with undoubtedly more to come.

SMG Maritzburg University breathed a sigh of relief when they beat Hillcrest 16-12 in their promotion/relegation match at Washington Road in the capital, to hold on to their Premier Division status, which by all accounts is the best result for the game in the midlands. They should now knuckle down take a leaf out of the Zululand books and resurrect the sport in their domain - certainly if the Rhinos and Zululand rugby have reshaped the state of club rugby in Empangeni and surrounds then there is no reason why they can't do the same at the Midlands Rugby Union - the very heartbeat of our game in KZN where the union was founded by Sir TK Murray all those years ago.

Rovers who won the Moor Cup, the Wylie Cup, the Frank Norris Cup, the Kings Park Challenge Cup, the Walker Cup, the KZN Womens Trophy, the Peter Taylor Trophy, the DW Geddie Cup and the Findlay Cup will spend the next seven weeks preparing for the National Club Championships, which for some obscure reason will be hosted by the 2007 champions the Maties of Stellenbosch University yet again. It clearly will be an uphill battle for Rovers who will need some game time especially now that the season has run its course in KZN and furthermore with a number of key players unavailable, it will also add to their challenge in the build-up to the tournament. The other unions are still busy with their leagues.

So it is with the curtain coming down on the club season that attention now gets focused on the junior provincial programmes starting with the Duikers who will face the Quaggas in their traditional annual derby at the home of Johnsson Crusaders in Ranleigh Crescent, Durban North with the KwaZulu Natal Women up against Border in the curtain raiser scheduled for a 5.30pm kick off.

- Jos Robson - The Mercury