University rugby will receive a major boost this year with the first staging of the FNB Varsity Cup competition.
The tournament, launched in Johannesburg on Thursday, will involve the top eight university sides as they finished in the SA Students Sports Union tournament last year.
They will play matches mainly on Monday nights, starting on February 18, and the top four sides will go through to the semifinals on March 31. The final will be on April 7.
The tournament is the brainchild of FNB's Western Cape provincial chairman and former Springbok captain Francois Pienaar, who says the concept is loosely based on the American College system of Monday night football.
"The National College Athletics Association (NCAA) in the United States stage intervarsity football matches every Monday night and they have become part of sporting culture over there," he said.
"One of our games will be televised on SuperSport each week and we are hoping to revitalise student rugby in this way."
SA Rugby's manager of youth rugby Mervyn Green said the tournament is specially welcome as it focuses attention on student rugby at a time when professionalism has deflected attention from this level of the game.
"University rugby has traditionally played an important role in our rugby structures and we have some great rugby institutions. The Varsity Cup will breathe new life into this important part of our game," he said.
In addition to the weekly games, there will be an intervarsity tournament in George over the Easter weekend at which all the teams will play three games.
Steinhof International are the sponsors, with Canterbury providing the jerseys and SABMiller also coming to the party.
The eight participating university teams are: Stellenbosch, North West, University of Johannesburg, Tukkies, Shimlas, Tshwane University of Technology, Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
The first fixtures are on Monday, February 8: Maties v Tuks in Stellenbosch; UJ v Tshwane University of Technology (Johannesburg) and UCT v Pukke (Cape Town).