Boland, Province down from SRC semifinal defeats

Jerome Paarwater and Randall Modiba, the respective coaches of beaten SuperSport Rugby Challenge semifinalists DHL Western Province and the Boland Cavaliers, cut understandably disappointed figures in the immediate aftermath of said semis at KaNyamazane Stadium.

Paarwater, whose team lost 50-21 to the Tafel Lager Griquas, admitted to tearing a strip off his team for the nature of the performance: “For us to come this far and putting up a performance like that was disappointing. I told them we didn’t do Western Province justice the way we played.

“We were still in the fight at halftime but then when Griquas saw we didn’t want to play they just upped the tempo and got their points – defensively we were nowhere. Yes we lost players, but I can’t use that as an excuse – any team I’m involved with can’t dish up rugby like that.”

Modiba was similarly disconsolate after his side also took a half century of points (57-32) against the Pumas: “Soft moments, a couple of unforced individual errors and some wrong option-taking swung the game.

“We were still in it when there was six points in it (at 31-25), but this is the ballgame at this level, as we know. If you want to box with the big guns then you must maximise on the opportunities you get from the game.”

For all that doom, however, both coaches took a lot out of the eight matches in which their teams were involved in the tournament.

Had Modiba been told that his team would advance to the last four for the first time this year at the beginning of the competition, he probably would have taken it. But he still felt his side could have done a bit better.

“Yes we would have taken it, but we also raised the bar and didn’t just want to come and participate. We wanted to compete and get an edge over the Pumas. But all credit to them, they’re a mature team, stuck to their guns and capitalised on our mistakes.

“That said this competition was a good platform for us to build good momentum for the Currie Cup, we aren’t going to get carried away by making this SuperSport Rugby Challenge semifinal because we’re still in a building phase of this cycle of Cavaliers rugby.”

Paarwater felt the toughness of the competition would help his Western Province under-21 side, most of whom were in the Rugby Challenge team, through a tough opening encounter against their Blue Bulls counterparts next week.

Having played 13 club rugby players during the tournament – the most impressive of which have been winger Andre Manuel and flanker Brendon Esterhuizen – Paarwater said he would like to see the Rugby Challenge enforce a club rugby players quota of about five players in squads.

Looking at how he could combat the constant disruptions the bigger franchises suffer from being linked to Super Rugby teams, Paarwater said he would investigate the possibility of a bigger pool of players and beginning pre-season in November, instead of putting a side together in February.