Acer Durban Collegians look set to play in the final of the newly created Central Provinces Club Rugby tournament after a weekend of misfortunes for them. They hammered Welkom Club 68-5 last Friday evening in a bruising encounter that saw a number of nasty incidents that were by no means a good advert for the game as their hosts saw it fit to physically lay into them leaving former Sharks player Brett Hennessey with a badly disfigured face having had his jaw and eye socket broken in quite the most unacceptable way.

Collegians then travelled to Bloemfontein to meet Old Grey on Sunday and although going down 25-24, did enough in the end to go through and will meet CUT Bloemfontein in the final this coming weekend. The venue and scheduled time for the kick off is to be advised.

House of Paint College Rovers, fielding a well below full strength side also had a weekend of mixed fortunes losing 30-15 to CUT Bloemfontein on Friday before picking up a convincing win against Bloemfontein Crusades beating their hosts 51-5. For Rovers there focus will now be on the National Club Rugby Championship to be held in Pretoria this year from 20 September and it’s interesting to note that the Rovers cricket side will also be Pretoria to do battle in the National Club Cricket Championship at the same time, which has to be a first.

In the remaining fixtures of last weekend, Envirosan Old Boys also found themselves floundering with a shortage of players but came away with two well-earned victories, beating Bloemfontein Crusaders 38-10 on Friday scoring six tries to one with Nikolai Blignaut being named best forward of the match with his backline team mates Chris Speirs and Clyde Lamble being named best backs. On Sunday they travelled to Welkom to finish off their campaign with a solid performance beating Welkom Club 43-7. Oldies prop Jan Piek was named best forward and his club mate Ian Downie best back.

This has certainly been a good experiment for the club game as a whole and there can be no doubt that it can only improve the status of the game at grass roots for the benefit of the players and the sport itself - one can only hope the competition grows from here.

- Jos Robson - The Mercury