The UKZN Impi side – unbeaten to date in this year’s Varsity Shield – suffered a massive setback, losing 16-44 against UWC in Johannesburg on Saturday. Making the loss worse, closest rivals WITS had earlier recorded a big win over TUT to leapfrog the Natal side to the top of the competition standings.
Campus disruptions this year have forced the movement of all Varsity Shield and Cup games to so-called “neutral” venues; however, the requirement to now play all of their matches in Johannesburg (coupled with some rather brutal travel schedules as a result) certainly would have a bigger effect on the likes of UKZN than it would on Wits, who are based in the city anyway. That said, Michael Horak and his team won’t be looking at excuses; they’ve let themselves down badly and now face a massive uphill struggle to secure Varsity Cup promotion head of next season.
Time to wallow in their own misery is not a luxury afforded to the team either; they face another match this afternoon, against Fort Hare and simply have to record a big bonus point win to retake top spot and keep the pressure on their Highveld rivals (who have a bye). Impi’s own bye in the last round could count against them, though as they are now heavily dependent on Wits dropping a point somewhere over the next two games, a rather unlikely scenario, one would say.
This team has stood up faced plenty of adversity in the past, though and they will need to control what they can control over the next two games and win both as well as they possibly can. The ball will then be in Wit’s court.
Good luck, Impi!
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That sucks. But they can still do it. Go Impi!!!
boys are on fire so far today…. 3 tries to 0 at the first strategy break.
Impi lead 23-0 and already have a bonus point. Need to win by 60 here if we can and put a serious dent in Wits’s superior points difference.
28-0. Five tries, but Tedder can’t hit a barn door. With conversions worth 3 points in Varsity rugby, that’s a concern.
36-0.
44-0
52-0.
PORN!!!!!
Impi lead 60-0.
If it ends like this, Wits’ superior points difference is reduced to 8.
68-0.
Now level on Wits with PD….
@robdylan: does it have to come down to points difference?ukzn beat wits home and away.
@50shadesofshark (Comment 10) : bonus points mean it unfortuantely does.
Before this match, Wits were level on log points and had a superior points diff of 68.
Impi need to
a) stuff UFH by a large margin (check)
b) stuff TUT by a large margin
c) hope that Wits don’t manage to get ahead again. The slight ray of sunshine is that Wits play UWC in their last game and that’s not a formality. They will go into that game knowing exactly what they have to do, though.
Keep going!!
@Sharks_have_Character! (Comment 12) : still 20 min to play, if you can believe it.
@robdylan (Comment 11) : thanks for the well explained reply.
@robdylan (Comment 13) : any new score update?
73-0
76-0
84-0. 6 min to play
@robdylan (Comment 17) : at least they’re really putting up a fight!
@robdylan (Comment 18) : great performance by the Impi!!!
ja so we won 97-0
@robdylan (Comment 21) : Holy hell, that’s considered a decent Proteas innings these days. Congrats Impi!!
What a miss match,I remember watching the Boks beat Italy by a 100 a few years ago in Durban and it was a kak experience.
No glory in a game like that.
Great result. Great to see a Natal team fighting so hard.
@The hound (Comment 23) : reality is they should actually promote Impi AND Wits immediately – possible even UWC too
@The hound (Comment 23) : what does that have to do with Impi? They know this tournament is likely to come down to points difference and they went out and scored 97 of them.
Reality is they must have broken a few hearts at Fort Hare,and put the game back 10 years in the Border region.
@The hound (Comment 27) : can the Border game be set back any further? 🙂
@robdylan (Comment 21) : geez they really stepped up!!!!
@Sharks_have_Character! (Comment 24) : yes they really went big!!!!
@JD (Comment 30) : reality is they need to beat TUT by an even bigger margin
I’m assuming the log over at 365 hasn’t been updated?
It has Impi P6 W5 L1 PF 216 PA 136 PD 80
Seeing as they just won by 97 points to nil they couldn’t have been PF 119 PA 136 PD -17 before this game right?
@robdylan (Comment 31) : or we need to hope UWC can beat (or draw) Wits.
Well done Impi
@Sharks_have_Character! (Comment 32) : Impi has played 7
@Sharks_have_Character! (Comment 32) : this is almost correct:
http://varsitycup.co.za/varsity-shield-fixtures/
Log isn’t updated with the UWC v TUT result (for some reason)
@robdylan (Comment 36) : cheers. I much prefer the current Super rugby system of going with number of wins rather than PD in the event of equal points.
@robdylan (Comment 36) : only good thing for the Impi is Wits plays 2 games in 3 days and the second game is against UWC. Impi must still beat TUT with a big margin to put pressure on Wits.
@Sharks_have_Character! (Comment 37) : yes I also think it’s better.
2 years ago I don’t think Impi would have been able to pull off a big win like that. Fantastic effort from the guys who obviously knew a big point difference was required.
@Hulk (Comment 40) : yes now they must do the same to TUT so that there’s as much pressure on Wits as possible.