Varsity Cup can still be revived

Following an incident in Bloemfontein where a group of protestors disrupted a match between UFS-Shimlas and the NMMU-Madibaz, the organisers of the Varsity Cup tournament opted to postpone Rounds Four and Five.

The decision to postpone fixtures was made on a weekly basis but has left many wondering exactly what would happen to this tournament.

Since the Final is scheduled to take place on April 11, the remaining matches - including the two postponed rounds - needs somehow to take place and a possible solution to this could be hosting the tournament over a week-long period at a neutral venue. This would ensure that crowd control becomes easy to handle.

There are four fixtures which need to be filled in order to determine the semifinalists and can easily be spread over a seven-day period.

Having a quick look at the Super Rugby fixtures over the next two weeks, quite a umber of those stadiums could be used to host such an event. The Sharks are away to the Bulls on Friday, March 18 - making Kings Park available for that week. Should that be an issue, both the Free State Stadium as well as the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium are available to host the event.

If that is too short notice to arrange, there are ample stadia who could possibly play hosts a week later.

So maybe the Varsity Cup organisers should consider playing four rounds of matches during the week, i.e. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. This would then conclude the round-robin phase of the competition and the semifinalists would be known.

The semi-finals and final could thus be played the following week, also at a neutral venue.

As it stands, the organisers are still unsure about what to do and this is one possible solution to their problem.

It would be a shame to see this tournament cancelled, and so let's hold thumbs for a positive outcome, if and when a final decision is made.

By Tauriq Ebrahim

@rugby365com