INTERVARSITY UCT vs Maties in Newlands

Maties 36 : 26 UCT 

On Saturday 5 May 2007 UCT XV took on Stellenbosch, in the annual ‘intervarsity’ clash. What was different from previous years was that the game was to be played as the curtain raiser for the Sharks/ Stormers game, at Newlands. For those of you who do not know the ‘intervarsity’ clash was originally played at Newlands, and only recently has it been moved to the Stellenbosch home ground. It is thus a welcome return for the intervarsity game.

With the Western Province Vodacom side getting knocked out the Vodacom
cup in the semis, saw the return of 11 WP Vodacom players to Stellenbosch
and 3 to UCT. The first half of the game was dominated by UCT with a
half time score of 16-10 to UCT. The game started off with both sides
trading penalties early on, Gareth Wright getting two and the
Stellenbosch kicker getting one. Score 6-3.  UCT thwarted many an
attempt by Stellenbosch, with some awesome defence.

UCT also failed to
capitalise half way through the first half, some sloppy passing and
good defence on the part of the Maties, saw UCT come up short on many
occasion. However, a missed clearance kick by the Maties fullback saw
Richard Lawson spark a counter attack, with a long pass to James
Richards, who broke through the Stellenbosch defence to chip the
fullback, a lucky bounce in favour of UCT saw David Edgar collect the
ball and score under the Matie posts. Gareth Wright converted, score
13-3. Some great defence on the part of both teams dominated the first
half, neither team conceding points nor ground to the other. Late in
the first half, Stellenbosch conceded a penalty within their 22m area,
Gareth Wright accordingly converting to make the score 16-3.

On the
stroke of half time, a promising line movement by UCT saw the ball go
wide from David Edgar to James Richards, unfortunately the ball not
going to hand. The ball was hacked through by Stellenbosch, line-out on
UCT’s 5m line, Stellenbosch winning the lineout to score a push over
try. Stellenbosch converted to find the half time score at 16-10. After the half the game turned from an even match to a one sided
match, with Stellenbosch dominating all facets of the game. An early
pushover try by Maties saw Stellenbosch take the lead 17-16. UCT’s
defence was valiant, but not up to the task of stopping the rampant
Stellenbsoch backs who scored two quick tries with some great hands and
speed.

Score 29 -16. UCT made good use of the infrequent ball that they
received. However passes not going to hand and missed tackles resulted
in UCT conceding yet another try, to make the score 36-16. With 6
minutes to go, UCT finally get possession of the ball in the
Stellenbosch half, a great break by David Clayton, who switched with
James Richards, who offloaded to JP Costa, who scored under the poles,
after running 30m with the ball. Final score – a dismal 36-23 to
Stellenbosch.
Well done to the Maties, and bad luck the Ikey Tigers. Please come
and support UCT as they take on a new and improved Hamiltons in
Greenpoint on Saturday 12 May at 4pm.

UCT: 1 Vakai Hove, 2 
Simon Westraadt, 3 Ian Mathew,
4 Bodo Sieber, 5 Mike Ledwidge, 6 Enoch
Luzuko Panya, 7 Jody Burch, 8 JJ Gagiano, 9 Danie van der Merwe , 10 Gareth Wright, 11 Rob Hopwood, 12 Kevin Foote, 13 David Edgar, 14 James Richards, 15 Richard Lawson

Reserves:

JP Koster, Ashley
Wells, Dylan Rodgers, Matt Johnson, Shaun Stewart, Dave Clayton, Matt Rosslee