Boland and the Leopards produced a spectacle seldom seen on a rugby field by playing suicide rugby that produced a nine-try thriller in their Currie Cup clash at Wellington on Saturday. Boland won the match 39-26.
The score was 32-0 at half-time.
The two premier-division minnows made their intentions clear early on with a high-tempo exhibition of daring rugby.
For sheer drama, it came close to emulating the 13-try dramatics of their previous game at Potchefstroom, which the Leopards won with two tries in the last five minutes.
This time, though, Boland were determined not to capitulate in such suicidal fashion.
Boland started the match like a runaway train. High risk reaped handsome rewards early on when both sides made their intention clear that they were prepared to run the ball from anywhere.
From the fourth minute, this enterprising attitude reaped dividends when Boland wing Rayno Benjamin was released from turnover ball on the halfway line. Benjamin chipped the ball and collected a wickedly bouncing ball that wrong-footed Leopards fullback Ronnie Cooke and sat up, inviting the speedster to fly over under the poles.
Two minutes later, Boland loosehead prop Jaco Engels, Loftus-bound at the end of the season, increased the home side’s tally with a cameo that must be a candidate for try of the season.
Exhibiting skills more synonymous with a centre than a prop, Engels dummied the Leopards three-quarters and accelerated into the gap from 55 yards out to score a try reminiscent of Richard Bands on the run against New Zealand in 2003.
Boland then had the scent of victory in their nostrils and after sustained pressure with the ball spread left and right, centre Kobus Meintjes put their third on the board after 25 minutes.
The bonus points were clinched in similar fashion by Boland flyhalf Antonius Verhoeven with half-time looming — just before both he and Leopards wing Colin Lloyd were sin-binned for fisticuffs.
In the second half, Boland started where they left off with Justin Peach scoring one of their best tries of the season. Quick to exploit turnover ball spilled 5m from their own try line by Leopards prop Bees Roux, the wine farmers threw the ball wide where centre Kobus Meintjes found space and timed his pass with Swiss precision to flying fullback Justin Peach.
Peach beat the cover defence on a 90m sprint to celebrate his team’s fifth try that took them into a 39-0 lead.
Then Boland ran out of steam and the Leopards hit back.
Just to prove that they could also produce the spectacular, they scored the first of their four tries in the last quarter with some style.
Fullback Ronnie Cooke rounded off a move that was initiated in the Leopards own 22 after the ball had whipped through a dozen hands.
This was the second wind the Leopards sought and after prop Deon van Rensburg had scored their second from close range, reserve loosehead Polla van der Westhuizen took his cue to thump his way over.
In the final move of the game, substitute number eight Ronnie Uys muscled his way to give the Leopards a bonus point to take home from an enthralling contest. — Sapa