Varsity Cup approaches home straight

Two matches in the FNB Varsity Cup take place on Saturday, as the race for play-off places  begins to hot up.

With just one more round of regular league action, before the Easter festival in George in a fortnight, teams simply can't afford any more defeats.

Tukkies (Pretoria) host the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in a full intervarsity at LC de Villiers in Pretoria, and Maties (Stellenbosch) face Shimlas (Bloemfontein) at Coetzenburg.

With many surprises after the first three rounds, all four these sides still have a chance to make it to the semifinals - and three of the four sides come off defeats in last week's matches.

Tukkies will be confident after their convincing win over the Shimlas in Pretoria last weekend.

They have a number of the 2007 national Sevens champion Blue Bulls players in their squad, and Emerging Springbok Johan Jackson at centre. Add to this Kruger van Heerden, Torsten van Jaarsveld and Shaun Davids.

However, UJ - also with provincial Sevens players Galier Marcus and Deon Assegaai - will have learnt their lesson against a free-running Shimlas side two weeks ago and could well block Tuks' running effort by dominating up front.

Against a UJ pack that is unchanged for the third week running, this could be the key to the match.

Maties, still smarting from their defeat by the Pukke in Potchefstroom last Saturday, simply cannot afford another loss - especially not at home. They have recorded one win, one draw and a loss in their three outings.

They play the very young Shimlas side, who were brilliant in their first match against UJ a fortnight ago, only to disappoint against Tukkies the following week.

The home ground advantage and more experience could carry this one for the Maties.

On Monday the Pukke are away to Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, while log-leaders Ikeys travel to Pretoria to play the Tswane University for Technology.