After what can only be described as the phoney war last weekend, rugby’s Manx Cup competition gets underway this Saturday.

As always, the Cup, which is diminutively small in size, seems to attract trouble.

Last Saturday saw Douglas North qualify courtesy of a bye, Douglas South beat Vagabonds Ladies and Vagabonds defeated Castletown.

This weekend should have seen Southern Nomads and Ramsey B plus Vagabonds Hornets and Emerging Nomads battling out for the final two places.

Instead, Ramsey B have conceded to Southern Nomads while Emerging and Hornets have both withdrawn from the Cup.

Neither side has progressed quite how they’d hoped at the start of the disrupted season and fear that the level of competition in the Cup was a little too high for them.

This leaves a five-team competition which will be played on a league basis home and away, with the top two playing off for the final in May.

The Cup’s opening round sees the two Douglas sides lock horns at Port-e-Chee.

Both pre-Christmas games were tight affairs and trying to pick a winner will be tricky.

Watch out for the form of Jake Corkish who was outstanding in the Manx Trophy and the Martin brothers Craig and Kyle who scored a hatful between them.

The other Cup game sees Vagabonds host Ramsey just up the road at Ballafletcher. A Ryan de la Harpe drop goal settled this game in the Trophy and Ramsey will be keen to strike back after finishing the Trophy by beating the champions.

SHIELD AND PLATE

The Manx Shield and Plate competitions also begin this weekend and will see a six-team league play each other only once. The table will be ranked one-to-six, based on these matches, and will then split into two mini-leagues of three teams apiece.

The top three will play for the Manx Shield and the bottom three for the Manx Plate. The top two from each mini league will play off for their respective trophies on finals day in May.

Ballafletcher will be busy with Vagabonds Hornets hosting Emerging Nomads. Hornets won twice in the Bowl competition and of course got some game time last week, whereas Nomads haven’t yet had a game since lockdown so may be a little rusty.

The final game of the day is at QEII High School where Western Vikings entertain Castletown.

The latter put on a good showing against Vagabonds last week so, barring injury problems, may just be a little sharper than Vikings who couldn’t get a side last Saturday.

l Douglas RUFC is hosting a members lunch from 12.45pm, with the Six Nations on the clubhouse screens - Italy v Ireland at 2.15, followed by Wales v England at 4.45. This is in addition to the Manx Cup derby between Douglas North and Douglas South at 2.15.

Fixtures for

Saturday, February 27

all kick-off @ 2.15pm

Manx Cup

Douglas North v Douglas South @ Port-e-Chee

Vagabonds v Ramsey @ Ballafletcher

Manx Shield/Plate

Vagabonds Hornets v Emerging Nomads

@ Ballafletcher

Western Vikings v Castletown

@ QEII