Home-crowd support can lift Bay teams

[caption id="attachment_70659" align="alignright" width="200"] - ON THE CHARGE: Despatch's Siwe Magaba on attack[/caption]

Despatch, PE Police in Community Cup action

PASSIONATE home-crowd support should lift Eastern Cape rugby teams Despatch and PE Police when they play their first matches on home turf in the Cell C Community Cup tomorrow.

After an impressive 69-32 win over Welkom Rovers in the opening round, Despatch will be looking to make further progress when they host Boland club Wesbank in front of what is expected to be a capacity crowd at the PW de Wet Stadium in Despatch.

Both Pool D teams are coming off wins and Wesbank set up an intriguing second-round match in Despatch by beating Pumas champions Shumba Ferros 32-13 last week.

Despatch, the 2013 champions, showed their intent with the weekend’s biggest win over Rovers, which included a hat-trick of tries by Kalvano King and 24 points to new flyhalf Francois Nel, including nine conversions.

Nel’s efforts see him top the tournament point-scoring charts after the opening round and his boot will play a key role again.

Despatch head coach Adri Geldenhuys said the defence and lineouts were two areas they needed to improve on.

In Pool A, Police will be looking to recover from their opening round defeat against Rustenburg Impala when they host Old Selbornians at Kemsley Park.

-George Byron