[imagesource: YouTube / SuperSport]

Unless you’re fortunate enough to live in an area where your power grid also supplies essential buildings like a hospital, load shedding comes for us all.

There are mixed reports as to whether Friday night’s Currie Cup clash between the Pumas and Western Province at Mbombela Stadium in Mpumalanga was hit by load shedding, or just a regular ‘ol power failure, but at least there was some comic relief.

With the match poised on a knife-edge heading into the final minute, darkness descended on the stadium and the isiXhosa commentary went all-in.

We’ll go with the load shedding explanation given that stadium manager Roelf Kotze told Lowvelder that he was aware that the lights would go down at 9PM, which wasn’t originally an issue as the match would be finished by then.

Despite the 7PM kickoff, a number of stoppages saw the match tick past the cut-off time and the rest is history:

This is how I’m going to react every time load shedding strikes from now on.

Scheduled from 6PM to 8:30PM? Wait until it hits and then roar “load shedding” at the top of your lungs. It won’t turn the lights on, but it may help reduce the stress of what I think is the worst load shedding slot of all.

“When we realised that the game would only finish after 21:00 the stadium announcer did inform the spectators of the pending power outage,” said Kotze.

“The stadium generators did kick in when the load-shedding started but in took eight minutes before the floodlights were at full strength”

In the end, Western Province hung on for the 23-17 win.

Ahead of hosting the Castle Lager Rugby Championship test match between the Springboks and the All Blacks on August 6, Kotze said they are “in the process of upgrading the stadium UPS” so that any power supply failure wouldn’t lead to floodlight failure.

[source:lowvelder]