Tigers face uphill battle

After False Bay clinched a 42-22 victory to claim the Mark Jordaan trophy on Saturday afternoon, the FNB Ikey Tigers haven’t had much time to dwell on the result. They’re back in action Wednesday afternoon against Primrose, but will have to play without a few players due to injury and the short recovery time they’ve been forced to work with.

“We played a very experienced False Bay side. Their starting fifteen had around one-thousand-one-hundred caps between them,” said Ikeys head coach Christian Esterhuizen, “At half time, the score was pretty close so the match was evenly balanced. They ended up scoring fourteen points late on so that’s where we let it slip.”

“The match was actually much closer than the score line would suggest, though,” Esterhuizen went on to say.

Looking ahead to their next match, coach Esterhuizen mentioned the numerous injuries in the team, and that we can expect a much different side than that which took the field against False Bay. “We’ve got to make nine changes for tomorrow’s squad, because of injuries and some of our guys are still with the Western Province team,” he said. 

Primrose of course are coached by former Ikeys flank, SA 7s captain and current Boland U20 coach Mpho Mbiyozo who knows both the Green Mile, as well as the student rugby style all too well. 

“We’ll field a young team tomorrow. Primrose have a massive pack of forwards who are very strong and experienced, but we’ll stay calm and hopefully something can open up for us in the last fifteen minutes or so. We hope our fitness will pull us through, especially towards the end,” added Esterhuizen.

Adding to his selection woes is the fact that the Varsity Sports 7s tournament is taking place this weekend, meaning that some players will only have two days to recover before representing UCT again. “It’s mainly some of our backline players who are going to play in the tournament, but it’s definitely a challenge to field the sevens guys. But this tournament will be good for them to improve their skills, their tackling, and gain some valuable experience,” Esterhuizen concluded.

IKEY TIGERS VS PRIMROSE – WEDNESDAY 27th at UCT