Tigers too tame at muddy Durbanville

Durbanville 18:14 UCT
The Ikey Tigers again left points against Durbanville in another frustrating and low scoring match against the Northern Suburbs side. UCT’s first match against DurBell in April had left a bitter taste, as the guests had insisted on playing a Friday night fixture despite UCT having played the inaugural Varsity Cup’s final on a Monday night. The match had gone down to the wire and Durbell won 15:14 – ironically the scoreboard showed exactly the same score this time around with 3 minutes to go.

A night of winter rains had prepared the field, which was heavy and muddy. The only green areas left were
behind the try lines – and only three tries in total didn’t do much to
change that. UCT minus a number of players away on WP U21 duty and regular flyhalf Matt
Rosslee in the Currie Cup mix, are still missing a specialist no10 which showed in the backline’s lack of cohesion and assertiveness.

Durbell played the conditions smartly and kicked plenty of ball, UCT didn’t really do that much wrong and played most of the opening 20 minutes deep in the home side’s territory. However the ref ruled a number of 50/50 passes forward and there was some careless play at the breakdown which cost UCT momentum and vital scoring opportunities.

Further basic mistakes were made by both sides, which slowed the game down and made it very unexciting to watch. The poor conditions were clearly the main contributing factor to the stop-start game. After 20 minutes Kyle Wickens (9) opened the scoring with a penalty. A few minutes later the Durbell scrum half kicked the ball through into the Varsity 22, the difficult bouncing ball eluded the cover defence of Dave Clayton (15), but one of the Durbell outside backs gathered the ball and carried it over the line for the first try of the match that was converted by the Durbell flyhalf. Wickens goaled another penalty this time from the Durbell 10 metre line. Later in the half Durbell had the put in to a scrum just inside the UCT 22. Durbell immediately took the ball wide from the scrum, Justin Bilj the UCT left wing slipped as his opposite player received the ball. This left the defence exposed and the right wing managed to step inside the desperate cover defence and scored. The conversion was missed. The half time whistle sounded soon after the try – 12:6 to the home-side.

Early in the second half Clayton kicked ahead for territory, a good chase was made by UCT which led to JJ Gagiano charging down the defensive kick. James Martin gathered the loose ball and scored. The conversion by Wickens was missed. Later Durbell kicked an important penalty, which took the scores to 11:15 to Durbell. Over the next period of play UCT were starved of attacking possession and were often forced by both Durbell and the conditions to kick for territory. UCT then had a promising passage of play and retained possession for a number of phases. This led to an easy penalty, which Wickens goaled to make it 14:15. This gave UCT confidence and the Ikeys started to look dangerous after Kyle Brown (substitute) made a 20 metre break around the outside of the Durbell defence. Durbell were then awarded a late penalty just inside the UCT half, a UCT player back-chatted the referee and the penalty was taken forward to within kicking range. The Durbell flyhalf goaled the important kick. UCT were unable to create another scoring opportunity and the match ended with the scores at 18 – 14 to Durbell.

The Ikey Tigers man of the match was lively scrumhalf Kyle Wickens – thje biggest hit was made by Justin Bijl.

All the matches leading up to the 1st XV match, were played at a relatively poor level except the 2nd XV (Eagles) match which was a tremendous rugby spectacle with some of the best tries of the year being scored. However the highlight of these matches was the biggest tackle of the season being made on Juan Coetzer in the Ish Dramat XV (3rds). This tackle gave the entire crowd flash backs of Brian “the Chiropractor” Lima’s tackle on Derek Hogard in the 2003 Rugby World Cup.  

Report by Chad Barker 

Ikey Tigers:
1. Vakai “Fish” Hove, 2. JP Koster, 3. Thembelai Mayosi, 4. Mike Ledwige, 5. Bodo Sieber, 6. Mpho Mbiyozo, 7. Jody Burch, 8.
JJ Gagiano (c), 9. Kyle Wickens, 10. Kevin Foote, 11. Justin Bijle,
12. Peter Engelbrecht 13. Dave Edgar (vc). 14. Rob Hopwood 15 Dave
Clayton 

Reserves:
Brad Gornall, Dylan Rodgers, Michael Passaportis, Enoch Panya, Kyle Brown, Matias ‘Chili’ Vergara, Tim Whitehead, James Martin, Peter Haw