Contests do not get tighter than what transpired at Makerere Rugby Grounds last Sunday. A total of 3 points separated the 4 teams to determine who goes to the next stage of the promotional playoffs.
A lone Patience Malongo try for the Lady Swans bettered the single penalty from the Lady Pacers to win the game 5-3 while a missed last-minute conversion from Hosanna Opilleni could have snatched the win for the Life Guard Rams who lost 14-13 to the Makerere Impis.
As the Central Rugby League champions, Impis and Swans, celebrated their qualification for the Promotional Playoff games, a cloud still loomed over whom they’d play in this national competition. Whereas the Central League didn’t conclude without challenges of its own, the regional leagues, especially the Western and Northern leagues, had it even worse.
With fixtures postponed, others silently not played without official communication, while in more embarrassing scenarios, results manufactured out of thin air, funding remains the biggest bottleneck for these competitions.
The central region teams managed to honour some of their fixtures due to self-funding and proximity to each other, a luxury other regional teams do not have.
The Mukono Hawks couldn’t afford to make the journey from Mukono to Entebbe (approx. 65.2 Kilometers) to play the Jaguars “leg” of the Central League, the Buddu Bears or Cuppas were expected to make the trip to Mbarara or Kabale (139 kilometers & 277.3 kilometers respectively) with little or no subsidies from the Uganda Rugby Union.
Even with the conference format implemented for the western region, the distance barely got shorter, given the same purse to work with.
What happens next?
Not all hope is lost for the regional competitions as they all return on the 26th of April 2025. In the Eastern League, Kakira RFC are in the final, awaiting the winner from the fixture between the Njeru Hurricanes and the Mbale Elephants while in the Western League semifinals, the Mbarara Titans take on the Tyrants and the KIU Crowz play the Buddu Bears.
The women’s final between Buddu Cuppaz and the Fort Portal Pumas shall take place in May and a venue yet to be announced.
The Northen League recorded the least number of games, and therefore a decision is yet to be reached on how they shall proceed, with the only assurance from an undisclosed source stating that the North too, shall be back in action after the Easter holiday with all regional competitions to be concluded by 3rd May, 2025.