South Africa’s annual national Gold Cup club competition will kick-off on 21 September, with the final scheduled for 19 October.
No less than 32 teams, two per rugby province plus the champions of last year and a wild-card, will compete in a knock-out format
The competition will again be sponsored by Dr Patrice Motsepe and Dr Johan van Zyl of African Rainbow Capital (ARC), shareholders of the BBRU.
In a media release, the president of the Blue Bulls Rugby Union, Willem Strauss thanked Drs Motsepe and Van Zyl for their continued support.
“We are blessed at the Blue Bulls Rugby Union with magical shareholders who are buying into a total eco-system of rugby, from grassroots to professional level,” said Strauss.
The defending champions are Naka Bulle from the Blue Bulls, who beat Berea Rovers in last year’s final and is therefore one of the 32 competing teams.
Another four other teams from the very strong Castle Carlton Cup competition will also participate in the ARC Gold Cup this season: Centurion RC and Tuine-Grizzlies of the Blue Bulls, and Limpopo’s, Northam Rhinos and Northam Wolves. Five of the sides striving to be the national 2024 champion club sides therefore play in the Carlton Cup competition.
Limpopo is a sub-union of the BBRU and is in many ways self-sufficient, with its own management structure and an own club competition in what was the Far North rugby union in days gone by.
With five teams from the Carlton Cup. The hard work to keep the Bulls club rugby and interest in rugby at this level could well see a repeat of last year’s final, where defending champions Naka Bulls beat KZN’s Berea Rovers in the final.
The ARC sponsorship is an incredible incentive for the more than 1 000 rugby clubs in South Africa and the hundreds of thousands of supporters that keep rugby alive in local communities from Limpopo to the Western Cape.
Loftus 200 team to play African champions
Strauss, probably the most hands-on president of South Africa’s rugby unions, added that there will be another incentive for the elite club players of the Blue Bulls with a Loftus 200 team selected from the Carlton Cup due to play against the recently crowned African champions, the national team of Zimbabwe, in a curtain raiser for the massive URC clash between the Vodacom Bulls and DHL Stormers at Loftus Versfeld on 1 March 2025.
“We are a province and not just a team, with growing and excellence on every level as part of our vision”, said Strauss.
