Wynona Louw's round-two hits and misses column picks out two standout individual performances against a broader argument that the Currie Cup — battered as it is — still has genuine competitive bite. Griquas scrumhalf Zak Alexander starred in his 50th appearance for the union, bagging a hat-trick in a dominant 56-26 win over the Bulls XV that saw Griquas torture the visitors at scrum time as much as in open play. Faf de Klerk was equally impressive for the Cheetahs in a 43-21 dismantling of the Sharks XV, pulling strings throughout and finishing with a cheeky intercept try late on — a reminder, Louw notes, that he's far from a spent force regardless of where he sits in Bok thinking.
The piece also takes stock of the competition's broader health. Louw acknowledges the Currie Cup's well-documented decline — a third-tier platform for fringe players and returning injury cases — but pushes back against the "it's dead" narrative, pointing to 39 tries across four games, hat-tricks in three of them, and a tightly contested table as evidence there's still something worth watching. The low point of the round was the Stormers XXIII's 41-3 capitulation to Boland, a performance Louw dismantles in some detail: 33 missed tackles, lineout chaos, scrum struggles, and zero tries to show for 80 minutes.