The Cell C Sharks took a full house of log points out of their Currie Cup clash with the Boland Cavaliers in Wellington on Friday afternoon with a well-desered 41-20 victory.
A solid first half, with the bonus point earned before half-time, laid the platform for a fairly emphatic win, but the second half perhaps didn’t quite flow at the tempo the visitors would have liked, especially given their aim of improving week after week.
But, the log will show that they have accrued maximum points from their opening three matches and that’s a good start to the competition.
After hammering away at each other in the early exchanges, a well worked move as the forwards combined nicely with the backs, Keegan Daniel unselfishly drawing his man before showing his skills with the perfect offload to the vastly experienced Odwa Ndungane who made no mistake with the touchline.
The Cavaliers, a man in the bin, had found themselves short of defenders out wide and paid the price. Curwin Bosch converted perfectly from the sideline to give his team a seven-nil lead.
Unfortunately, they conceded a penalty right at the kick-off and the Cavaliers added the three to get on the scoreboard.
Ndungane was the man of the moment shortly afterwards as he took a high kick deep in his half, managed to break through the defence to make a wonderful 40m run before Tera Mtembu fed Inny Radebe to score, with Bosch adding the two.
It was an opportunity to kick spurned, and paid off handsomely.
Bosch kicked his first penalty after a solid scrum from the Cell C Sharks and with a quarter of the match having been played, they enjoyed a commanding 14 point lead. Not long afterwards, a massive individual effort from the barnstorming Andre Esterhuizen paid off as he took three tacklers down with him before stretching for the line. The TMO was happy with the referral and awarded the third Cell C Sharks try with less than half an hour’s play.
Sadly, Tera Mtembu had to leave the field with a suspected knee injury and hopefully it wasn’t serious.
The bonus point came with half-time beckoning, the forwards in imperious form as they drove lineout ball, then employed the pick and drive tactic well, with Chiliboy Ralepelle eventually scoring the fourth Cell C Sharks try.
There was no further scoring aside from the conversion, and it allowed the visitors to take a commanding 29-3 lead into the break.
Two minutes into the second half, it was clear that the hosts were battling with the pace and physicality brought by the Cell C Sharks, standing around waiting for a scrum, hands on knees, sucking for air.
To their credit though, when they had a sniff of an opportunity, they took the try well, sucking in the outside defence for Danwel Demas to score his team’s first try of the game with half an hour to go.
Disappointingly, the second half failed to reach the same heights as the first, more likely as a result of the fact that the Boland team enjoyed much more possession than they had in the first half.
They were rewarded with a second try, again finding space out wide, this time on the opposite wing, bringing some respectibility to the scoreline with a quarter of the game to play. In the Cell C Sharks’ defence, the bench was just about emptied and the disjointed nature of the game didn’t suit them.
But you can never discount the value of experience, and Keegan Danie showed just why he is such a valued member of the side, playing an elusive running role en-route to the Cell C Sharks’ fifth try, replacement scrumhalf Hanco Venter cantering over following two influential runs from the livewire loose-forward and Garth April converting.
At 36-13 up, the result had been securely wrapped up but they never rested on their unassailable lead as they contunued to attack, in search of a sixth try. The forwards came to the party as they drove from a lineout, Franco Marais the man in possession at the back of the maul for a good score.
Boland threw everything into a final attack and were rewarded with a try from the strong running Ryan Nel and that was how the game ended.
The post Mission Accomplished appeared first on Sharks Rugby.
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