Reigning champions Maties will play host to the Shimlas on Monday the 8th of April in the second of the 2019 Varsity Cup semi-finals.
Maties will be looking to bag a ninth finals appearance by beating Shimlas in the second of this year’s Varsity Cup semi-finals. The hosts enjoyed a marvellous round-robin phase winning all eight of their fixtures while claiming try-scoring bonus points in six of those eight games. Shimlas were far less prolific and just managed to scrape into the semi-finals with four wins from their eight games.
Maties v Shimlas
Monday 8 April
Danie Craven Stadium
19:00
To Win (80 Mins)
Maties 1/100
Draw 30/1
Shimlas 11/1
Handicap
Maties (-32.5) 17/20
Shimlas (+32.5) 17/20
Maties
The most successful side in Varsity Cup history will be looking to extend their unbeaten run in the tournament to 19 games when they take to the Danie Craven Stadium this Monday.
The hosts come into this one as red-hot favourites with the bookies, and, in all honesty, a win really isn’t in question today as Maties are in a totally different class to their opponents as is evident by the 14-59 demolition they handed their opponents during the round-robin phase.
Maties, despite resting a number of first stringers, put on a great show during last Monday’s last set of round-robin fixtures as they beat UWC 84-26. While they’re unlikely to rack up as big a score this Monday, we can still expect plenty of tries from the men in maroon.
Shimlas
The Free Stater’s managed to come out trumps in last week’s almighty battle for the final semi-final berth with their 14-38 victory over UJ seeing them claim fourth place by just two points.
Shimlas only managed to win four of their games during the regular season and suffered quite a few big losses to the more elite sides in the tournament, which saw them finish the regular season with a points differential of -11. This illustrates just how leaky their defence is, and it will no doubt be exposed by Maties this Monday,
Verdict: Maties (-32.5) 17/20
Maties will have no trouble bagging the win here. In fact, I expect them to see off the Shimlas by more than 25 points.
