Saturday was a big occasion at Stephan Way as we faced fellow title chasers Stellenbosch University.
The game started positively with flanker and Hamilton Man of the Match Chris Cloete crossing over within the first minute as he broke straight threw the middle of a ruck to score untouched. This would be the last time that we held the lead as the Maroon Machine found some rhythm and started playing some quality football.
Maties lineouts functioned superbly with Wilhelm van der Sluys dominating and securing good ball for his backs to attack with.
The Hamilton three quarters defence was not at its best and was breached by the Maties backs with Paul Stircher looking particularly dangerous as he ran some superb support lines.
Our forwards did well in lineouts and scrummed very well scoring a push over try against a strong Maties pack later in the game.
Ultimately our defence let us down we scored 4 tries and conceded six not a good day at the office thus only securing 1 bonus point as we went down 45-24.
With 3 games remaining we will need to refocus, assess injuries and bounce back on Wednesday evening as we face UCT on the Green Mile.
Hammies Points Scorers:
Tries: Chris Cloete (2), Jody Burch, Janno van Zyl
Conversions: Monty Dumond, Shane Vallender
By Anton Moolman