Sixteen thousands tickets; two superb rugby teams; one humdinger of a Curri Cup semi-final between the Bulls and the Sharks.
|||Durban -
Sixteen thousands tickets; Two superb rugby teams; One humdinger of a semi-final.
A Sharks versus Bulls clash, no matter the magnitude, always brings with it an extra surge of spirit, and this weekend’s match between the arch rivals at Kings Park is expected to live up to that hype.
“We don’t want a walkover,” said chairman of the Sharks’ Supporters’ Club George Laas. “We want 80 minutes of good, hard rugby. The Currie Cup is 120 years of tradition and, that we are in the semi-final playing against our old foes, is just fantastic.”
However, although Laas and other Sharks’ supporters are rubbing their hands in glee as the countdown to the kick-off begins, Bulls’ fans – still gushing about their “liefling” Morne Steyn – seem undaunted, and are already discussing who their opponents will be in the final.
On their official Facebook page, the Bulls’ fans debated whether they would be meeting Western Province or the Lions – playing in the second semi-final at 7pm on Saturday, in the final.
It is the same (over) confidence which saw them failing to buy allocated tickets for the 2010 semi-final against the Sharks, opting to rather save their money for tickets to the final, which they didn’t.
One can only hope that they have learnt from their past mistakes and will start snapping up some of the 3 419 tickets that went on sale at Computicket on Monday.
Last week about 14 000 tickets were made available to the public from the Sharks’ ticket office. Two of them were bought on Monday by 18-year-old Bulls’ supporter James Bruwer, who now lives in Durban.
“Obviously the Bulls are going to win. When they are underdogs or written off this is what they do, they can go from down on the bottom of the log to the semis,” he said excitedly, clutching his tickets.
Paul Dedekind, Bheki Maziya and Luis Corte disagree, however, shouting jovially that the Sharks would win, in the kind of tone implying that to even question the outcome, was stupid.
Between them they snapped up 26 tickets.
Another Sharks fan who bought tickets on Monday was Nams Gama, who believes that, apart from having the superior talent, the Sharks would win simply because he would be at the game.
Considering himself the team’s lucky charm, he said: “Every time I come to the game they win. When I don’t come, they don’t win.”
He said that he was ready to “rock” his black and white gear for the highly anticipated game.
Just over 1 000 tickets were sold between the ticket office and Computicket, leaving thousands still left for those wanting to soak up the atmosphere at the stadium. Stand tickets cost R150 while scholar benches are R70. - The Mercury