Hawies reveals new challenge in odd Currie Cup: 'You don't know what to do with yourself at times'

The Currie Cup's imperfect scheduling for 2022 has delivered a bizarre new challenge for its teams: potential boredom.

Hawies Fourie, the Cheetahs' head coach, highlighted the realities currently confronting him and his colleagues with matches only being played every second week.

"It's quite disruptive not to play every week. It makes it quite difficult at training because you don't want the players to get bored, so you try to avoid doing the same things over the two weeks. You don't want them doing certain drills over and over again," he said on Thursday, ahead of a trip to Nelspruit to face the Pumas on Saturday.

"A coach has got to be innovative in what we do in those two weeks. But on the other hand, it helps with recovery and for injuries to heal."

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While the unusually long downtime has, interestingly, allowed the Free Staters to absorb longer-term injuries sustained last year - like returning right wing Dan Kasende - far more easily, rhythm and match fitness has suffered.

Even Fourie admitted to feeling a sense of guilt for "not doing enough".

"It definitely feels like a bit too much time between matches. Even as a coach, there are some major challenges. Your prep is basically completed in the first week and in that second week you don't actually know what to do with yourself at times," he said.

"You sometimes even feel a bit guilty and lazy because you've done all the homework and imparted that onto the team and now there's not much else to do.

"It's difficult, though there is the comfort that it's the same for most of our opponents too. Even Western Province and the Lions have a lot of 'free' time on their hands because they