UCT v Villagers

UCT 19 :8 Villagers

The UCT versus Villagers derby game held at Grootte Schuur on Saturday the 1st of September lived up to its billing of the clash of the 2 top teams in the southern suburbs. The game as often is the case at UCT’s home ground, would be one of two halves, with the wind being a crucial factor in deciding the eventual winner.

The students started with excitement and verve, and seemed to revel in their new found freedom on attack. No longer pushing for league honours, freed of pressure to win meant that UCT could swing the ball at every opportunity. A 3 try blitz in the opening 20 minutes was testament to this, as Jody Birch a two try hero on the day, showed his old club what a valuable asset he is, with blustering runs up the middle, and two very well worked tries in both corners.

Possibly the play of the day however, started with James Richards, the UCT fullback. Richards cut the Villagers defence at will close to the touch line, put a well placed grubber kick in field for James Martin to re-gather and allow him time enough to offload in the tackle to young Monty Taljaard, who dived over just to the left of the uprights. With UCT pushing for the bonus point try before half-time, and Villagers working harder on defence, Villagers finally seemed to have found far more patience and control with the ball in hand. Their loose forwards doing great work to give their backline front foot ball, which resulted in a fine try and a well taken penalty by Warren Edwards, to have the score at 19-8 in favour of the students going into the half-time break.

The second half was far more defence orientated, with Village now having found their feet in the blustery conditions, and UCT no longer having the wind at their backs. This resulted in a far more defensive approach from UCT, who tackled with much passion and heart, which seemed to have been lacking in previous games. Villagers controlled possession well, and seemed to be playing with far more intent and purpose than in the first half, however with UCT defending their line with reckless regard for body and limb, they just never looked like crossing over for what would have been an important score. Thus through out the second half and right up until the final whistle the scores remained locked at 19-8, giving the students a much deserved victory over rivals Villagers.

written by Kenrick Brown

UCT: 1 Ashley Wells, 2 JP Koster, 3 Dylan Rodgers, 4 Rob Siddle, 5 Mike Passaportis, 6 Montagu Taljaard, 7 Jody Burch, 8 J.J Gagiano, 9 Danie van der Merwe , 10 Gareth Wright, 11 Richard Lawson, 12 Kevin Foote, 13 David Edgar, 14 James Martin, 15 James Richards

Reserves:
Kenrick Brown, Vakai Hove, Ian Mathew, Craig Kleu, Shaun Stewart, Marcelo Sampson, William Nichol, Matt Rosslee