SHUFFLERS SHOW THEIR CLASS
[Tuesday, December 29, 2009 22:49:24]50 Teams arrived for the Mossel Bay tournament on Monday at the Diaz Beach resort.
As has been the case since Struisbaai, the wind again reached a swirling 35km an hour and with the tide causing havoc, the "SPAR Hot Summer of Touch" crew had its work cut out to keep the tournament to schedule. The players too, had a tough day with desperately soft sand, coupled with a calf twinging slope and of course the sea on one side of the field...
The Pro Series was always going to be a tight affair considering the conditions. The Maynardt Touchies team did themselves no favours in the Grand Prix by losing to the Raptors (who qualified for the Pro Series Quarters by ending up as runners up in the open tournament.). The Shufflers then convincingly beat the Raptors in the Semi's setting up their second final in a row (their fourth overall).
Their Final opponents were once again the Itec Nomads. The Nomads beat the Open tournament winners, the Touch Formers in the quarter finalsand then Henties in the Semis...
It was inevitable that the final would once again go down to a sudden death drop-off and it was again the Shufflers who edged the Itec Nomads by 1-0 to take the title.
The shufflers then showed their class by comfortably beating the Rob Louw Invitational (5-2). Rob's guys (ably lead by Vlok Cilliers) played in pink in his honour and included Robert Ebersohn, Sarel Pretorius, Braam Van Straaten, Joe Petersen and Springbok sensation Heinrich Brussouw.
The final leg of the series takes place at Hartenbos on Wednesday with all to play for as 3 teams can still win and the bottom 4 teams can all still be relegated.