Ikeys aim for play offs

The Ikey Tiger’s 37-29 fifth round win over UJ on Monday reveals just how far the team have come since round one. Their first game loss against log-leaders NWU-Pukke left the side reeling, however, they bounced back and defeated familiar rivals Maties on their own turf, and they followed that up with another win on the road against NMMU.

And now, the boys have done it again, recovering from a 26-16 fourth round loss to Tuks and scoring a massive five tries against UJ, moving themselves up from 5th place on the log into the 3rd spot.

Speaking about how the side have turned things around for themselves, coach Kevin Musikanth said “the pride with which we defended our tryline and the patience that we as a team showed in the last 5 minutes when UJ were trying to pull the win from behind, was a sign of how far the squad has come and developed into a team since our first disappointing home game against Pukke.” UCT had an incredible start to the game scoring 21 points to nothing within the first 13 minutes.

Musikanth explains that while their start is cause for celebration, afterwards “silly mistakes allowed our opposition back into the game making it extremely tense at the end which we obviously weren’t happy about.” Despite their disappointment with the previous game’s score, the side moved forward with determination. “We have tried to have a different theme within the camp every week.

This week we had an attacking theme which paid dividends with us scoring some good tries,” the coach explained. While 3rd place on the log is a comfortable position to be in given the looming playoffs, UCT will be sure to not loosen the throttle in their next two games. UCT will look to carry forward both the determination and optimism instilled in the team when they return home next week to take on Shimlas.

The FNB Ikey Tigers take on FNB Shimlas at the Green Mile on Monday 10 March 17.00 in their final round robin home game – tickets are available on http://webtickets.co.za/event.aspx?itemid=410051280