Celebrating the start of their eleventh season this could be a year of complete change for the Pumas, with the intriguing possibility of matches against teams from the South on a regular basis. Several talks have been happening over the past few months and the Pumas have been accepted into the Cyprus Rugby Federation league – now the hard work starts of trying to get the matches played.
This Saturday (25th October) sees the first game of the 2014-15 Season for the Cyprus Pumas with a match against the NEU Tigers. This is another exciting development in the history of rugby in the TRNC and could hopefully even be the start of a mini league within the North. The Tigers are based at the Near East University, Lefkosia and there seems to be a strong squad coming together under the leadership of several players currently studying at the University from Zimbabwe.
Together with the Pumas players and some from the Eastern Mediterranean University, who have been training during the hot summer months on Glapsides Beach in Famagusta, there should be a pool of upwards of fifty players eager to try out the sport and hopefully grab a shirt for the league matches starting next month.
Club Chairman Hakan Temizyurek said “it is great to get a game of rugby going so early in the season for Cyprus. Hopefully we will be able to pull together several more matches over the coming weeks and get the impetus going to once again see the sport of Rugby Union played regularly in the TRNC and hopefully at all of the universities.”
The venue is the EMU Stadium, Famagusta 99450 with the kick off scheduled for 2.15pm. Spectators are very welcome and although there will be no formal entry fee there will be a chance to make donations towards the costs of staging the match.
