One can rarely predict with almost 100 percent certainty that a weekend of rugby is going to come with tries galore.
Sure, you can hope for it, but you can’t always bank on it.
This weekend, though, as the curtain comes down on the league phase of the Currie Cup, you can almost expect it.
Only Griquas would really have been able to go to bed last night thinking about anything other than how much they want to get maximum points.
For the rest, bagging those maximum points are going to be important, albeit for slightly different reasons, especially for Western Province.
During the team announcement press conference on Wednesday, coach John Dobson said that he wants his side to attack more against the Free State Cheetahs at Newlands.
He also said that they could still make the play-offs even if they lose. The catch? They would need to score four or more tries to get a bonus point, while they’d also have to hope other results go their way.
The Cheetahs, on the other hand, will still be safe even if they lose to WP today. Again, four tries will also be the target though. And that alone is enough to make tonight’s fixture one that can be expected to be an entertaining one.
A home semi-final will still be the objective for Franco Smith’s men, and that would mean that they can’t just go out and plan to do enough to be “safe”.
And according to Smith, what’s going to be key going into their home game is doing the most they can.
“We need to forget everything else and just focus on playing this game to the best of our abilities,” Smith said.
“It’s important to win, everybody knows that, but if we keep on wishing that we win it’ll never happen, it’s about what we do to achieve it.
“It’s a tough competition, and we now just need to focus on doing the best we can.”
Dobson also highlighted the magnitude of this game, and hinted that chasing tries would be a priority.
The team the new Stormers coach has named for this meeting is one more than capable of producing on the try-scoring front, with the likes of Dillyn Leyds and Damian Willemse returning to the starting line-up, while Sergeal Petersen and debutant Rikus Pretorius also add to that strike force. And then, of course, there’s Seabelo Senatla on the bench, who Dobson said isn’t good to go for a full game because of an injury niggle.
Things can pan out any way where the Currie Cup is concerned today, but if you needed a reason to add watching the WP-Cheetahs game to your to-do list, rest assured that celebrating beyond the tryline will be the goal.