Rugby feast: Treble TV task for Mallett, Burger and Bobo

SuperSport’s Indian Premier League coverage bypass - the marathon T20 tournament was due to begin on Friday - may have stunned cricket lovers, but for rugby devotees the weekend is contrastingly, unusually bulging with SA-relevant frontline matches on the box.  

READ | IPL blackout: SuperSport’s glaring, rare cricket content void  

Schalk Burger and Nick Mallett would almost unquestionably feature very loftily if South African rugby television-watchers were asked to rank their favourite studio pundits: it comes as little surprise, then, that the pair - legends in different ways of the Springbok cause - have been summoned to a marathon shift in the SuperSport studio on Saturday.

The corporation's outside broadcast teams have been stretched to an unusual extent for the oval-ball game this weekend, with three of our top franchises (Sharks and Stormers at home, though Bulls abroad) active in the tantalising first knockout phase of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the Cheetahs and Lions facing Challenge Cup tussles ... and a full, four-game round of Currie Cup taking place, into the beefy bargain.

For Mallett, Burger and another regularly-summoned figure in Gcobani Bobo (the former Bok centre knows European rugby well from his late-career days with Newcastle Falcons), it’s a stamina-sapping Saturday from a “vocals” point of view.

They will offer their expertise on, respectively, Sharks v Munster (13:30 kick-off), Stormers v Harlequins (16:00) and finally Lions v Racing 92 at 18:30 ... all anchored by Motshidisi Mohono.

But it’s a wordy weekend, too, for the blow-by-blow commentators at two venues featuring double-headers.

In a novel event, the Stormers’ appealing Mother City clash with 'Quins is the "curtain-raiser" (though largely