Greetings. I took a sabbatical, and as such I didn't present points progression and match performance analysis for Weeks 7 & 8. However, this week I covered my 7th game of the season, albeit in the Central Uganda Rugby Association (CURA) Championship; the Makerere Derby. In the Men's Premiership, there are only 3 teams I'm yet to watch this season (Eagles, Mongers and Warriors) and there are 2 fixtures involving those 3 teams in Week 7, enabling me to complete covering of each team at least once.
As always, for a reference and guidelines on what is to be captured this season and the points progression nomenclature, previous articles in this blog can provide clarity (here and here).
Impis and Rams met in the first Makerere derby outside the Premiership in 6 years. Rams 12 points on the day was not far from their average points in the 5 meetings prior to Saturday (12.8). Darren Aine was named man of the match, after contributing 11 points to Impis' victory, for a 4/8 goal success rate. Rams' Ryan Juuko only misses one of his 5 attempts at goal.
In scrum play, the scrummaging was much better than the lineouts. Each team only had 1 turnover on their respective scrum feeds (7 for Impis, 10 Rams), but a combined 10 turnovers on lineouts.
Warriors secured their first win of the season against Elgon Wolves, scoring 5 tries to 1. Ivan Longa made 5 of his 6 attempts at goal, to exceed his expected points by 3.5. Warriors took the lead in the 70th minute and never relinquished. Wolves' biggest deficit of the game was 26 points (when they were down 29-03 between the 54th and 59th minutes).
Rhinos made a late comeback to secure a win against Buffaloes. Buffaloes led for a combined 41 minutes, compared to Rhinos' combined time in lead of 29 minutes. Ivan Kirabo contributed 15 points from a try and place kicks worth 10 points. It was the weekend's narrowest winning margin (02 points) and during the course of the game the game never exceeded 5 points.
KOBs recorded an 8th consecutive victory in the League in their game against Walukuba. However the gap between the 2 teams has been narrowing over the years. Walukuba allowed an average of 52 points per game while scoring 9 per game for the previous 3 meetings between the two. But on Saturday, KOBs scored 37 points to Walukuba's 31. In the previous 3 meetings Walukuba had scored a total of 27 points, including the 2023 Week 1 game where they failed to register points on the board in a 76-00 loss. Shakim Sembusi managed 2 points from an expectation of 7.42 while Gift Wokorach scored 14 points from an expectation of 10.5. Aredo outperformed his expected points by 0.11 points, from 5 out of 7 attempts at goal.
Heathens edged Victoria Sharks 15-13 in their first ever meeting. Both teams didn't execute their place kicking well, managing 1 successful attempt out of 9 attempts for both teams. From a combined 12.08 expected points, kickers only managed 3 points. Heathens led for 90% of the game, with their biggest lead coming between the 19th and 30th minute at 10-00.
Pirates maintained their grip on the top spot, with a 62-22 victory against Eagles. Despite conceding the first points of the game early in the game, Pirates led for 93% of the game. For the third consecutive week, Pirates have won a game by a margin of 40 or more points. Magomu made his first start of the season, scoring a try and an additional 15 points from the boot. He outperformed his expected points by 0.39 points. Jason Nuwamanya continues to impress, scoring a try and 12 points from the boot, gaining 1.02 points on his expected points.
Hippos returned to winning ways against Mongers. Hippos led for 83.75% of the game, with their biggest lead coming in the 60th to 63rd minutes (22-05). Similar to the Heathens-Victoria game, the kicking for both sides was below expectations. Only 2 attempts of 13 for both teams were converted. From an expectation of 21.66 points, kickers only got 04 points (-17.66).
Ceteris. Paribus.
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