Eastern Province gave the Cheetahs a hefty scare as they held them to a 13-9 scoreline in their pre-season friendly at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
Sport24
The Mighty Elephants, who were using the friendly to push their claims for a place in the Super 14, defended as if their lives depended on it, and disrupted the Cheetah game plan throughout.
The Cheetahs will be unhappy with their own performance, which was below their standard, and will have much food for thought as they prepare for this year’s Super 14 competition.
With a side relatively close to the one which will start against the Bulls on February 12 in their opening game, the Cheetahs made way too many mistakes on the evening and allowed their opposition to disrupt them throughout.
Having said that, Cheetahs manager Eugene van Wyk concedes that the Elephants played above themselves and certainly made the scoreline fair in front of a good crowd of 15 000.
One aspect that coach Naka Drotske will be happy with, is the performance of young flyhalf Sias Ebersohn. Ebersohn got the backline moving a lot smoother and scored the only try of the game, finishing off a backline move which started when the Elephants failed to kick the ball out.
For the Cheetahs, their loose trio of Ashley Johnson, Juan Smith and Heinrich Brussow stood out, while Eastern Province’s captain De Wet Barry and flank Zolani Mofu were the pick of the players for the home side.
Tewis de Bruyn kicked the conversion for Ebersohn’s try, as well as two penalties while EP’s points came through three penalties from the boot of Justin Peach.
“It was a lot closer than we would have liked,” admitted Van Wyk afterwards, “We made a lot of mistakes but we must give EP credit for the way they played against us. They certainly gave us a good game.”
Scorers:
Cheetahs:
Try: Sias Ebersohn
Conversion: Tewis de Bruyn
Penalties: De Bruyn (2)
Eastern Province:
Penalties: Justin Peach (3)
To be honest i have nothing to say about this warm up, i do not want to say anything that they can use against us later too. 😆
DWB had i goodish game i read somewhere else, he is available for us later when needed. Keep it up De Wet , although you where never one of my favorites.
De Wet Barry’s form has provided compelling reasons why the Bulls should use him in this year’s Super14.
Barry was outstanding for Eastern Province in Saturday’s friendly match against the Cheetahs in Port Elizabeth.
The Cheetahs won the match 13-9, but a number of them will be nursing the bruises of Barry’s tackles.
“De Wet tackled us back in the first channel and brought his loose forwards into the game well,” said Cheetahs backline coach Hawies Fourie.
“It was clear that he is fulfilling a very serious leadership role at EP. He still has a lot of rugby left in him and can be used in the Super14.”
Barry did not only shine on defence. One of his breaks in the first half could have led to a try had there not been a knock-on.
The humble Springbok did not want to talk about his own game and rather praised his team-mates.
He will train with the Bulls again this week and will return to EP in seven days. The Bulls will be able to call on his services should they require him.
“The deal with Bulls is that they can pull me in if necessary,” said Barry.
Well of course it was a close game, because it is a SUPER 14 warm up game, and the Cheetahs take the whole S14 as a vacation to rest their players for the CC. They use their S14 games against other SA teams as warm ups for the upcoming CC, and since that are the only S14 games they take serious, they normally are competitive against exhausting SA teams.
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