Final four a battle of history and heartache in Pick n Pay Gold Cup

All club roads will lead to the Bushveld and Surf City on Saturday as the Pick n Pay Gold Cup reaches the semi-final stage after three weeks of nail-biting action from club venues across the country.

The 32-team ‘FA Cup’ of South African community rugby has seen 28 matches played since the Round of 32 kicked off on 26 September. With 28 hopefuls now eliminated – with several matches decided in the dying seconds, or by just a single point, or both – the final four find themselves just 160 minutes away from winning the biggest prize in the domestic club game.

The country’s pre-eminent knockout club championship – which is sponsored by the national retail chain for the second time as part of a four-year agreement that includes becoming Tier 1 sponsors of SA Rugby – is also supported by Northam Platinum, whose commitment to community aligns with the grassroots spirit of the Pick n Pay Gold Cup.

‘Semi-final Saturday’ has thrown up an interesting script, with the two travelling sides being the only ones to have drank from the priceless, century-old golden trophy since it was introduced in 2013, following the advent of the FNB Varsity Cup and the subsequent reinvention of the old National Club Championship, first staged in 1975, into a tournament reserved exclusively for non-university clubs.

There is an added plot twist in the first semi-final in Durban, between perennial KZN champions C. Steinweg College Rovers and Western Province heavyweights Lone Bull Durbell, who beat Gardens (Eastern Province) and Roses United (Boland) respectively last Saturday to reach the final four.

Rovers and Durbell have travelled many of the same paths together over the past 14 years and Saturday’s showdown will be infused with a shared history of triumph, disappointment, resilience and reinvention.

Rovers, with former Springbok and Blitzbok star Rosko Specman weaving his magic and ex-Sharks loosie Lubabalo ‘Tera’ Mtembu winning the forward of the tournament award, won the last-ever Club Championship final in Rustenburg in 2012.

Specman and Mtembu played an integral role in building a remarkable dynasty for the Durban side, who are based in the shadow of Hollywoodbets Kings Park. Between 2009 and 2012, Rovers won 79 of 83 competitive matches and beat Maties in Stellenbosch in 2010 to win their maiden national crown.

Rovers’ 2012 Club Champs final victory over Pretoria Police also earned them the right to help usher in a new era for club rugby by hosting the first-ever Gold Cup match in 2013 – at the same KP3 venue playing host to Saturday’s semi-final against the visiting side from Cape Town’s northern suburbs.

The Durbanites would comfortably beat Despatch on a memorable day that saw Despatch and Springbok legend, Danie Gerber, deliver the new trophy to the field by helicopter – only to lose to the Eastern Cape side in the inaugural final held at Outeniqua Park in George on Easter Monday, thanks to a post-hooter penalty goal from the boot of former Sharks flyhalf Monty Dumond.

In some ways, it may be argued that Rovers still carry the scars of that 2013 defeat. Despite reaching the 2017 and 2023 finals – where they lost to False Bay and Naka Bulls respectively – for coach Derek Heiberg and his men, winning the Gold Cup remains as elusive as finding the Holy Grail.

Durbell, meanwhile, entered the 2012 Club Champs as one of the favourites, only to stumble in the quarter-finals and have to watch on as Rovers surged to win the title. However, for the Cape side there was to be redemption just three years later, when they returned to Rustenburg and lifted the 2015 Gold Cup against all odds, after starting the then-20-team tournament through a back-door repechage tournament and thus as the lowest-ranked team.

Durbell, like Rovers, have gone more than a decade without tasting victory at national level, having lost the 2019 final to Rustenburg Impala. Saturday’s match therefore carries with it the weight of a shared history, with players and coaches from both sides desperate to reach the Grand Final – none more so than coaches Heiberg and Marius White, who lifted the Cup with Durbell as a player in 2015, and his veteran centre from that year, Tiaan Radyn.

The stakes will be just as high at Bushveld Park in Setaria, Limpopo, where Northam Platinum Rhinos, who lost the 2024 final to Naka Bulls by just three points, will be out for revenge against their Pretoria arch-rivals.

Coach Nollis Marais’ Rhinos, who beat Brakpan 46-33 in a quarter-final match that was postponed by a day due a lightning storm over the East Rand last Saturday, will also be looking to reverse the result of last year’s semi-final against Naka, also in Setaria.

For Marinus van der Watt’s Naka Bulls, who overcame Randfontein (Lions) 45-37 in the last eight, a second consecutive Gold Cup semi-final victory on the road against Rhinos will put the three-time defending champions just 80 minutes away from an unprecedented fourth straight title – and club rugby immortality.

Semi-final fixtures

Saturday

2pm: C. Steinweg College Rovers v Lone Bull Durbanville-Bellville (Kings Park 3, Durban)

4pm: Northam Platinum Rhinos v Sanlam Naka Bulls (Bushveld Park, Setaria, Limpopo)

Both matches will be broadcast live on SuperSport channel 950.