EP Kings to play Pumas in Currie Cup 1st Div final

The Eastern Province Kings will play the Pumas for the right to be called Currie Cup First Division champions after the two sides recorded hard-fought victories over the Leopards and Griffons respectively in Friday’s semi-finals.

The unbeaten Kings are also safe in the knowledge that, whatever happens in this coming Saturday’s final at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth (kick-off 14:30), they are guaranteed of playing a promotion-relegation match against the bottom-placed Premier Division side for the chance to be part of the top flight in 2013.

Alan Solomons’ men earned their shot at promotion after finishing top of the First Division log, thanks to 12 wins and two draws in their 14 matches. Intriguingly, in the context of the final, is the fact that both draws came against the Pumas.

The men from Mpumalanga qualified for the final thanks to a 37-30 victory over the Griffons at Nelspruit’s Mbombela Stadium, while a hat-trick of tries from Kings wing Paul Perez help set up a 50-27 win over the Leopards at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.

Currie Cup First Division
Final Log:

* Please note: EP Kings earn right to play promotion-relegation match after topping the final log.

TEAM P W L D PF PA TF TA BP -7 BP T PTS
EP Kings 14 12 0 2 515 246 64 27 0 10 62
Pumas 14 9 3 2 525 365 64 46 1 9 50
Griffons 14 9 5 0 476 491 65 70 2 10 48
Leopards 14 8 6 0 511 449 66 51 2 10 44
SWD 14 8 5 1 473 445 60 56 1 8 43
Boland 14 3 9 2 466 487 63 67 6 8 30
Valke 14 3 10 1 393 598 56 82 2 7 23
Border 14 0 14 0 315 593 41 80 5 6 11

Top 10 point-scorers
After semi-finals:

PLAYER T C P D PTS
Andre Pretorius 0 47 21 3 166
JC Roos 2 37 25 0 159
Hansie Graaff 6 34 11 1 134
Elric van Vuuren 8 27 13 0 133
George Whitehead 4 30 17 0 131
Elgar Watts 7 28 8 0 115
Wesley Dunlop 3 26 14 0 109
Karlo Aspeling 4 25 10 2 106
Jacquin Jansen 6 8 10 0 76
Allister Kettledas 14 0 0 0 70