As anticipated the trip out to Florida Park to face a resurgent Tygerberg was as challenging as expected.
Our match preparation had gone according to plan, we had made a number of changes in the lead up which contributed towards our cumbersome start to the match.
Faced by 15 motivated opponents and a hostile crowd of 3000 spectators the players ran out onto “Die Hok” to claim the points that we need in our bid to lift silverware.
We were penalised early on at the breakdown which allowed Tygerberg to take a 9 – 0 lead as we were ill disciplined in contesting for the ball allowing the home team to take advantage of their territorial advantage.
A lapse on defence saw us chasing back as Tygerberg hacked the ball down field only to outstrip our cross cover to take the score to 14-0.
We bounced back immediately off a set phase move as 8th Man Pat O’Brien made excellent ground gaining great momentum before the backs were cut short, meters from the line. Freddy Muller fed Jody Burch who burst over close to the uprights ensuring that Monty Dumond had no problem with the conversion. 14-7
The next 10 minutes proved to be costly as The Tiere pounced on our errors. The first a charge down as Earl Lewis attempted to chip and gather followed by an over throw in the line out which saw the ball spread wide and again hacked down field. These errors saw us trail 26-7 with minutes to go in the first half.
A neat break by Fred Muller off a line out saw us run 80 meters with Dumond and Klaassen combining before Meyer Swanepoel eventually barged his way over. Dumond converted to see us go into the break 26-14 behind.
To the players credit despite the scoreline we felt we had the game but knew that we would need to minimise our errors and get into decent area’s on the field.
We started the second half well dominating scrums and territory this lead to us scoring 2 tries, the first by Earl Lewis after we had capitalised on a solid 5 meter scrum and the second was the try of the match. Pat O’Brien broke from deep in our half after the kick off and made over 50m before offloading to Monty Dumond before a neat switch with the flying No 9, Fred Muller, saw us dot down to take the score to 26-24.
We had some anxious moments as the game drew to a close , we had potentially taken the wrong option not to go for poles and take the lead however Monty finally slotted a penalty to give us the lead, 27-26.
Tygerberg pressed and had opportunities to kick for goal but the pressure told as their kickers failed to find the mark from long range.
The final 10 minutes was a real character test as the home crowd got behind their team , we were down to 13 men after receiving yellow cards for indiscretions. Attack after attack was launched but our work ethic on defence was incredible as we held out to clinch the bonus point win 27-26.
In doing so we retained our unbeaten stays and look forward to challenge that lies ahead at False Bay this coming Saturday.
