The men’s Uganda Cup will this weekend reach the quarterfinals; a stage where the tournament typically started at the turn of the millennium before the Round of 16 was added around the 2010s. To put it simply, we are now at the business end of things where no quarter will be given by the still-surviving eight teams.
Uganda Rugby Union (URU) proposed and proceeded to redesign the playing format of the tournament starting with the 2023 edition. It would now include a round-robin pool phase of twenty teams and the matches would be spread over eight weeks. When you crunch the numbers, this would lead to a twenty-five per cent increase in team participation and a thirty-six per cent increase in the number of matches played.
understand the new format
On the pitch, it was a tournament that staged exciting matches and yielded shocking results in the pool stage. Eagles beat Pirates in the opening round, Rhinos and Hippos settled for a draw in the third, and Impis beat Hippos in the penultimate round. The biggest margin was Heathens’ 138-point blowout of Tooro Lions.
All good things to write home about.
Unfortunately, the Uganda Cup was overshadowed by headline-snatching events in the final quarter of 2023 both on the local scene and internationally.
These included Rugby Cranes’ first Victoria Cup triumph in front of an energetic home crowd, the return of the Elgon Cup which saw Lady Rugby Cranes lose by a record eighty-seven points against rivals Kenya Lionesses, the Safari 7s where the women won Uganda’s first gold medal and the men bagged a podium, and the two-test series tour of Tunisia.
There were also matters off the pitch which stole the Uganda Cup’s limelight even further. For example, the rugby awards night, clubs’ Annual and Special General Meetings, and the perennial boardroom squabbles within the union and its clubs.
Save for the third game week, at least one scheduled match was unplayed and recorded as either a walkover (3) or a postponement (2). The three walkovers all involved Lira Bulls who could not honour any of their fixtures in the tournament. The two “postponements” resulted from a diplomatic standoff between Legends-based rugby clubs (Kobs, Rhinos, and Warriors) and the union.
None of these could be ignored.
But now that the fireworks have ushered us into the new year, it is an opportunity for the Uganda Cup to take back its post as a must-watch tournament.
See the quarterfinal pairings
The quarterfinals have unique stories that will start 2024 on a high note. The teams and the players to earn silverware and bragging rights, and the union to reap the benefits of a difficult decision.
Uganda Cup, it’s your time to shine!
