In a Vodacom Cup weekend dominated by upsets, the biggest came at Securicor Loftus on Saturday afternoon.
With almost no one giving them a chance of winning, the bottom-of-the-log Border Bulldogs surprised the Vodacom Blue Bulls to run out 33-26 winners.
The fact that the game was played at the Bulls’ home ground in Pretoria and that the Bulldogs were trailing 14-7 at the turn makes the win even more remarkable.
”We concentrated a lot on basics and we ensured our line-outs and scrums were solid,” said happy Bulldogs assistant coach Delarey du Preez.
Du Preez said the team visited a motivational speaker early in the week and his talk to the team inspired them to do well.
”To be honest, we didn’t play well in the first two games of the season.
”Last week, I think, we showed what we can do when we took the Lions to within three points, and now we proved a point to ourselves that we can win,” Du Preez said.
Starring for the Bulldogs — as he has done for most of their games so far — was flyhalf Reinhard Gerber, who slotted three conversions, three penalties and a drop goal for his personal tally of 18 points in the game.
Vodacom Blue Bulls coach Ashley Evert said the Bulldogs dominated the first 20 minutes of the second half, which effectively took the game away for his team.
”They took their chances, they converted their kicks, and they really piled on the pressure from there. We lost a lot of players throughout the game and had all our reserves on the field and we were really very disjointed,” Evert said.
Although a major confidence booster for the Bulldogs, Du Preez said he told the team to stay level-headed for their next few games and stick to the basics.
In another upset, the struggling Eagles ran in four tries to win 38-28 against the Vodacom Cheetahs. The Cheetahs have been erratic this season and coach Helgaard Muller says it’s time for his squad to start playing better rugby.
”It wasn’t a difficult game for us, we just didn’t play well at all and we made too many mistakes,” Muller said.
Delighted Eagles coach Johann Lerm said the game was won by his forwards.
”We scrummed well and our line-outs were superb — we really got the basics right. A lot of hard words fell this past week, and the guys picked up their game and their urgency to the point of breakdown impressed me immensely,” Lerm said.
In Durban, the Natal Wildebeest expected to perform well against the Kimberley-based Wildeklawer Griquas. But the weekend’s trend of the underdogs coming good continued when they trounced the Wildebeest 21-10.
The Falcons, who have two wins, one draw and only one loss from their first four outings, impressed with their solid performance against the hapless Griffons, running out 40-12 winners.
The team secured a bonus point scoring five tries and flyhalf Louis Strydom again proved his worth to the team by adding 15 points with the boot.
”Our biggest strength today was that we scrummed well and technically, we were outstanding,” said coach John Williams.
The win consigns the Griffons to the very last place on the log as they are now the only team not to have recorded a victory from any of their first four games. — Sapa