2026 Premiership Week 4: The 9-10-15 Spine

Greetings. Week 4 served up some of the biggest fixtures in the land. In the Women's Premiership, the teams that have finished in the top 2 for the last 4 years met as Thunderbirds hosted four-time defending champions Black Pearls, in the 14:00 kick-off at Kyadondo. At 16:00 Heathens played host to Black Pirates, the two teams having equally shared each of the last 4 Premierships. In the Preview we briefly mentioned Pirates chase for history as they attempted to defeat Heathens in five-consecutive games for the very first time. 

The High Penalty Count Between Thunderbirds and Black Pearls

Thunderbirds ground out a 25-21 win against Black Pearls on a muddy Kyadondo pitch. There were 38 penalties conceded by both teams, with 9 of those by an attacking team while in defence both teams combined for 29 penalties. The main infringement in attack is holding onto the ball after being tackled.

 

For penalties conceded during defensive phases, each team conceded majority of its penalties in their respective Own Half and Own 22 areas. 

 

The 9-10-15 Spine in Heathens vs Pirates

There are key positions that are crucial to a rugby team's performance, in some cases called the "spine". Depending on the source, the spine has been described to include the Hooker (2), the 8thman (8), the halfback pairing (9 & 10), and the fullback. For the Heathens vs Pirates game, the focus was on the backline spine, and some insights on their passing and kicking.

Matthew Musasizi featured for 60 minutes before Nicholas Kato replaced him, whereas Pirates introduced Conrad Wanyama in the 45th minute in place of Stephen Alul. Musasizi completed 37 of 40 passes and Alul had 25/25. Wanyama's high number of pass attempts was fuelled by Pirates' late drive for a winning try; he went 16/17 after Okeny's try. Wanyama carried twice, including after the penalty restart which resulted in a 22-entry for Pirates, eventually yielding a try after 2 Heathens penalties conceded in their Own 22 and 2 Pirates lineouts.

 

Eliminating kick-offs, penalty clearance kicks into touch and 22-drops, Musasizi, Aaron Ofoyrwoth and Malcolm Okello made 18 kicks in play to 13 from Wanyama, William Nkore and Haruna Muhammed. Musasizi made 6 box kicks, with one of them yielding a knock on and Heathens retaining possession. In his 35 minutes of game time, Wanyama made 3 box kicks, with one successfully retained by Jeremiah Okello. 

Both teams' fly-halves had 50-22 success. The resulting lineout from Nkore's 50-22 yielded a try (Emong). Heathens won the lineout from Ofoyrwoth's 50-22 but a handling error cost them as Pirates proceeded to win the scrum and exited their 22.

Both fullbacks were consistent under the aerial ball. Okello received 4 aerial balls, choosing to pass once while carrying on 3 occasions. Haruna's 3 aerial balls received were split equally between carrying, passing and calling for mark, after which he kicked.

Possession Origin of Tries 

Cranes Chronometer

Chasing (Away) History in Week 5

🌟Table leaders Mongers have won all 4 of their opening games of the season. They have not had a winning streak of 5 or more games in the post Covid era. They travel to King's Park to face defending champions, Pirates. In their last meeting at King's Park in 2023, Pirates raced to a 50-00 lead at halftime, before Mongers recovered to close out the game 57-28.

🌟Pirates have suffered their first loss of the season, after stringing together 20 consecutive wins (including 13 consecutive in the Premiership). They have not lost back-to-back games in the Premiership in the post-Covid era.

🌟Rhinos, Warriors and Kakira Simbas are all without a win. The longest win-less streak by Rhinos to open a season was in 2023 when they lost 5 and drew once in their opening 6 games before registering their first win against Mongers in Week 7. Warriors' first win last year came in Week 9 (vs Elgon Wolves) whereas in 2024 it was in Week 4 (vs Eagles). For Kakira Simbas, they will look to avoid Elgon Wolves' record who went the entire regular season without a win, securing a first win in the relegation playoff second leg against Warriors. The earliest a promoted team has won a game was in Week 1 last year, when Victoria Sharks defeated Eagles.

🌟With Faragi Odugo not featuring in Week 4, Aaron Tukei and Fat Moses Watmon (both Buffaloes) are the only players to score a try in each game week this season. Tukei is joint top-try scorer with Odugo (tied on 5 tries), having played one more game than Odugo's 3.

Errata

The Week 2 Official Matchday form for the Mongers vs Rhinos game presented an error in the computation of the result, that could have implications for the top points scorer and points difference on the Premiership log. At halftime the score was 06-03 in favour of Mongers. The issue arises in the recording of the events in the second half, particularly after the substitution of Eden Shatiff and the try scored by Morgan Cheche.

 

The match sheet computation has a full time score of 28-14.However, after accounting for the error the score recorded in the Isa Metrics archive is 26-14. This gives Mongers a +24 points difference on the log instead of +26 in the Official record, and Rhinos has -100 instead of -102. 

In the individual scoring charts, Shakim Sembusi is assigned 72 points in our record.

Once the two-point jump is justified in the subsequent weeks, then this archive will be updated accordingly.

Ceteris. Paribus.