Furious rugby action this weekend

Fierce battles are expected to ensue this coming weekend at SSKB stadium during the Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) league championships.

The team to beat and super league defending champions BDF Cheetahs will take on Gaborone Hogs while Jwaneng will face BUAN on the reserve league. The formidable BAC N are expected to face the unpredictable UB Rhinos in the women’s league. Meanwhile BU Ryders are scheduled to battle it out with newbies Hogs in the president league.

According to BRU Secretary General Ernest Mantsi, the league finals will carry an electrifying game of rugby. Mantsi said they expect nothing but fireworks this weekend.

“Looking at the fixtures, it is hard to predict as to which team will go back home with a win. All the teams are capable of bringing it down over the weekend,” Mantsi said.

According to Mantsi, all teams have of recent proved to be highly competitive and singled out the Jwaneng based team saying their performance during the semi- finals was a thrill. He said the team is very much capable of causing upsets against the highly committed BUAN side. 

On the women side, he said BAC N and UB are sworn rivals.  “BUAN has shown a lot of resilience but we cannot expect anything less from the UB team.”

“We are eyeing to retain the championship title,” Coach Emmanuel Masinki of UB Rhinos had said in an earlier interview with BG Sport. The team also won the Knockout Cup championship title this season.

He had assured and sworn that he is on a mission to humble BAC N if given a chance and the weekend encounter will surely give him his heart desires.

Furthermore, BRU will for the very first time in history this coming weekend award monetary prizes to the winning teams .The said monetary figure stands above P30 000 and will be divided between the four leagues.

President of BRU Dave Gilbert had told this publication in an interview that BRU is on the verge of securing sponsorships deals. “We will be having sponsors next year, that much I can assure you,” he said.

Gilbert said with the sponsorships they will be able to keep their athletes motivated and possibly reach some of their set mandates of developing rugby locally.

However he expressed concern with low turnouts of supporters at the games, saying the numbers are disappointing than normal. Nevertheless he remained hopeful that they will pull through noting that Rugby is still not very familiar to many Batswana.