After leading 13-3 at half-time, Griquas defeated the Blue Bulls 26-18 in a hard-fought Currie Cup fixture at Absa Park on Saturday afternoon.
On balance, Griquas deserved their victory. After initially seeing off plenty of early Bulls aggression with determined and committed tackling, they settled down to dominate the remainder of the first half.
The visitors were most unfortunate to lose the services of their lively and capable scrumhalf Heinie Adams, who had the misfortune to break his left fibia in a tackle on 20 minutes. Neil Powell was his replacement.
In an otherwise stop-start first half during which referee Deon van Blommestein awarded numerous penalties, Griquas scored the first of their two tries in the 34th minute when fullback Zane Kirchner did well to gather his opposite number Johan Roets’s angled kick inside the home team’s 22 and give out to scrumhalf Tertius Carse, who took off and simply kept going, running all of 60m to score in the far right-hand corner.
Flyhalf Conrad Barnard’s conversion from the touchline sailed between the uprights to give Griquas a useful 10-point lead at the break.
The Bulls stormed on to the attack at the start of the second half and with their forwards now playing with more urgency than the home pack, it came as no surprise when, after five minutes, flank Deon Stegmann, with plenty of support from the other big Bulls men, dived over between the Griquas’ uprights.
Flyhalf Morne Steyn made no mistake with the conversion and the home team’s lead was slashed to three points.
It was the accurate boot of Conrad Barnard that kept Griquas in front when he landed a 42m penalty.
Back came the Bulls with left-wing Marius Delport’s unconverted try in the corner as the visitors attacked blindside.
With Griquas leading by a solitary point with 20 minutes remaining, it was still anyone’s game. A penalty apiece — first for Griquas and then for the Bulls — made it 19-18 to Gareth Krause’s determined team going into the final 10 minutes.
And what an exciting last few minutes it proved to be.
With the talented Griquas back-line counter-attacking with speed and flair, it was the Bulls’ defence that was now being stretched. With the home forwards giving excellent support , something had to give and it came via replacement flank Wayne van Heerden’s well-worked try for the home side in the 79th minute.
Barnard’s acutely angled conversion sailed between the uprights and Griquas’ 26-18 victory meant that the Bulls returned home pointless. — Sapa