Staff Reporter.
Jerome Paarwater has expressed his unhappiness with Western Province’s results in the Currie Cup this season, while also building up the clash between Juan de Jongh and Frans Steyn on Friday.
In the standout fixture in the Currie Cup this weekend, WP will host the Free State Cheetahs in Cape Town on Friday afternoon.
The two teams go into the match with contrasting results. Province have only won one game so far this season and are sitting in sixth place, six points ahead of the winless Lions. The Cheetahs, meanwhile, have held top spot for most of this season and have a game in hand over the Vodacom Bulls, who are currently in first place.
Province are coming off a narrow 45-34 loss to the Bulls in Pretoria, where they pushed the home side for the full 80 minutes, but could not come away with a single log point.
“We are still not happy about that result,” Paarwater told reporters on Thursday. “We said earlier in our meetings, that we are not happy about losing anymore. We are not a bunch of losers. We are happy with our performances, but not with the outcome.”
Paarwater said that Province still feel hard done by with some of the officiating in the game against the Bulls, particularly the decision not to send Bulls hooker Bismarck du Plessis off for a slap.
“We really feel like the 50-50 calls are not coming our way. That’s why last week after the game I said and made it clear that I am going to cite Bismarck. We had a three-hour meeting on Friday and a lot was said.
“At that time the score was 24-22 and if he got a red card during that game, the way we were playing, that was really going to be our game. This whole season, the 50-50s have never gone to our side.
“Bismarck got his three-match ban after the game, but it doesn’t help us, we still lost that game.”
Against the Cheetahs, WP will come up against a backline powered by veteran Springboks Steyn and Ruan Pienaar, even though the Bloemfontein side will be without in-form flyhalf Siya Masuku due to illness.
Meanwhile unrelenting flooding in Durban, and out of respect for affected people and communities, forced SA Rugby to cancel Saturday’s Currie Cup encounter at Kings Park.
The Sharks were set to host top of the table Bulls, but prolonged rain in the province has claimed the lives of 306 people and has left many homeless.
SA Rugby statement:
The Currie Cup Premier Division match between the Sharks and the Bulls, scheduled to take place in Durban on Saturday afternoon, has been cancelled.
Due to the heavy flooding in KwaZulu-Natal and the considerable loss of life and infrastructure damage across the province, and out of respect to their community in the face of the disaster the province is enduring, the two teams have agreed to cancel this encounter.
As there was no alternative option to reschedule the match, the result will be declared a draw and the log points will be shared, with each team awarded two log points.