{"id":30690,"date":"2026-04-03T10:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T08:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=30690"},"modified":"2026-04-03T10:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T08:14:15","slug":"sa-teams-brace-for-european-knockout-weekend","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-teams-brace-for-european-knockout-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"SA teams brace for European knockout weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A big weekend of knockout European rugby awaits three South African (SA) franchises.<br \/>\nOn Saturday, the Stormers face Toulon at the Stade Felix Mayol in the round of 16 of the European Champions cup.<\/p>\n<p>That clash for the ages will be followed up by another potential classic when the Bulls go up against the Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun Stadium, also in the Champions Cup.<br \/>\nThe action kicks off late on Friday night, when the Sharks face Connacht in the round of 16 of the Challenge Cup in Galway.<\/p>\n<p>No matter the competition, when the Bulls see that they are up against the Glasgow Warriors, the sense of dread is palpable.<\/p>\n<p>The Warriors beat the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld in the final of the United Rugby Championship two seasons ago.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Bulls also continue to demonstrate that, no matter the competition, on the road they get results we they need them most.<\/p>\n<p>They beat Pau in Southwestern France to move on to the round of 16 in the Champions Cup, and now coach Johann Ackermann has chosen a formidable Bulls team for their trip to Glasgow.<\/p>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23623,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-30690","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"The European rugby","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30693,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30690\/revisions\/30693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}