A storm was brewing on Saturday morning over the mountain as the players and spectators gathered for what looked like a wet and windy day of Rugby at UCT.
A good sized crowd had gathered for the 1.30 kick off and witnessed a different kind of storm. The one that has been brewing in the visitors change room. Once unleashed on the home side there was very little UCT could do to stop it.
An opening 20 minute blitz from the visitors put the game to bed with some ruthless finishing and fearless tackling.
Hammies 3rd team arrived with real purpose and turned up the heat on the home team as early as the 3rd minute with centre Ivan Kuhn busting out of several tackles and showing no mercy to a disorganized UCT mid field defense. Ivan was rewarded with 2 fine tries to send the home side reeling. Sadly Ivan had the leave with field with a head injury, which we hope is not to serious. Kuhn had his best outing for the 3rds this season, by a long way.
In addition, Dan MacKenzie and the impressive Louw Langevelt dotted down early on to help take Hammies out to a 31 – 0 HT lead and the bonus point already secured before UCT had shaken off the Friday night beers.
Hammies arrived with a new look backline. Tristan Cramer slotting in at flyhalf had a superb day out. Tristan {who was the unofficial Man of the match} directed traffic all day putting Kuhn , Dan Mackenzie and our much improved back row of James Language, Raymond Finkel and Ranger Kothe into space and over the advantage line. He also managed some strong carries and showed us an all round game with some accurate kick off offs, clearing kicks and conversions to guide the side to the comfortable win. Well played Tristan.
No Flyhalf can perform without good service and scrum half Anthony “Skoene” Small must get a mention for his crisp service behind a dominant pack.
The try of the match was reserved for the deserving captain Ranger who managed to round the UCT full back on the outside with a great step and finish.
The foundation for the victory must be credited to the forward pack who really stood out and were just too well organised and powerful for UCT. Hammies work rate around the park and at ruck time was also impressive. A dominant Hammies scrum and line out really did not leave much for UCT to work off, however they were able to cross for 2 late tries to salvage some pride.
The only area of concern would be the discipline of our players at the break down. Over the past 3 weeks we have conceded a huge amount of penalties in this area. Had we kept our discipline here I believe we could have scored several more tries to really hammer the hosts. Perhaps we need to look at our techniques and decision making at the breakdown to ensure this doesn’t cost us in the tighter contests to come.
What was pleasing to see was a conscious effort from the captain and players to keep it simple, adjust to the conditions out there and implement a simple and direct game plan as set out by the coaches during the weeks training.
Well played boys. This was a fine performance.
Hammies will enjoy a 2 week break before locking horns with Tygerberg at home on the 24 June.
Tries by
Ivan Kunz *2
Louw Langeveldt
Dan Mackenzie
Tristan Cramer
Ranger Kote
Conversions
Tristan Cramer * 3
