Tag: Eastern Province

Currie Cup ~ E.P. v W.P

My programme

The Currie Cup is reputed to be the oldest rugby provincial competition in the world and after a 12 year absence my Eastern Province is back in it!

It’s the top tier of S.A. rugby and yes, you’ve probably guessed by now we (EP) have never won it.

We won’t be winning it this year either but that matters not, the season kicked off last night with our first pool game against Western Province.

After our highly successful Super rugby campaign last year most of our players have been bought / stole / enticed away to ‘bigger’ clubs. (A Scottish bunch even enticed our coach away along with one of our best flankers!)

So, lots of new names to learn last night, lots of fringe players from last season getting a chance to step up to the big time lots of mistakes and drama but who cares (not me) another great night of rugby in our very own new stadium.

You can see that the Eastern Province team have reverted back to the famous Red and Black hoops kit, no more pandering to advertisers and promoters, no more dull black or white shirts that any true EP fans have absolutely no affinity with whatsoever, no, back to our famous red and black.

As you all know by know, results are hard to come by down here, suffice to say that we scored our first Currie Cup try in 12 years in the 32nd minute and led 11-10 at halftime, then the wheels fell off.

But a great evening, a great competition, it’s good to be back! Continue reading “Currie Cup ~ E.P. v W.P”

A bridge too far

I’m sure that the hoards of avid rugby followers that read these pages will agree with me that the gap between the two tiers of S.A. Currie cup rugby is larger than we first thought.

Although the E.P.Kings went through the season undefeated, (2 draws) and rightfully earned their place in the promotion / relegation playoffs, (home and away) last nights hammering at the hands of the Free State Cheetahs brought us all down to earth with a bang.

Ironically on the left try scorer Andries Strauss has already signed for The Kings for next season.

The score? An overwhelming 53 -14 (8 tries -2) Match report here

Here’s hoping that we don’t have more of the same next year during our first Super Rugby campaign, sure we’ll have a few new signings to strengthen the squad but against full strength outfits from the Crusaders, Reds, Bulls, Sharks et al it could be a very long season!

The drought is over

As I drove along the highway to East London today I heard the news that the Kouga dam was overflowing! I was going to type “you have no idea what this means to us ‘ but of course most here do.

It is the largest of the dams supplying this region, when full, as now it is 35 km long!

2 of our other dams are overflowing and the other two must be close to overflowing by now.

So, my question is, why hasn’t our municipality made a statement about this, this is the best news that we’ve had in perhaps 2 years and nothing from them.

Is it because it happened on a weekend?

Is it perhaps because despite prior warnings our council has been shown to be completely inadequate in times of flood disaster management.

OR

Is it because they can no longer charge ratepayers a penalty for exceeding limits now that water is in plentiful supply?

I had a bath this morning

For perhaps the first time in at least 2 years I had a bath this morning.

Thanks to mype.co.za for the graphic, click pic for source

 We have had some good rains this past 10 days with more, lots more expected overnight and tomorrow.

I was with a couple of chaps from our water affairs dept. this morning and one of them said that he expects our average dam levels to exceed 50% by Friday and possibly 60% by this time next week. Official dam levels here.

50% is the magic number, it is at this level that the severe usage restrictions are enforced, restrictions include hose pipe bans and a form of water rationing. My household (6 people) is allowed 15 kilolitres a month (500 litres a day), we are regularly on or just under our limit, this is achieved by limited toilet flushing, only showering, no watering of the garden (except with previously used water), limited motor vehicle washing and definitely no topping up of the pool!

Penalties for exceeding the limit include financial penalties and a ‘flow limiter’ for serial offenders. Continue reading “I had a bath this morning”