After the feast of round four – with three victories over New Zealand teams – came the near famine of round five with only the Toyota Cheetahs of South Africa’s four teams in action picking up a victory.
sarugby
The Toyota Cheetahs recorded a third successive win over the Waratahs to put themselves in sight of a slice of history. If they beat the Western Force in Perth on Saturday, it will be the first time they have won three matches on an overseas tour.
The feat has previously been achieved on five occasions by South African competitors with the DLH Stormers leading the way with a hat-trick of three-win tours (2008, 2011, 2012) while the Vodacom Bulls (2007) and The Sharks (2009) have one apiece.
The narrow margin of the Toyota Cheetahs’ 27-26 win mirrored their one-point victory over the Sydneysiders in Bloemfontein last year (35-34) to complete a third successive victory over the Waratahs following on their 23-3 win in Australia in 2011.
The Southern Kings had their first taste of international opposition in the shape of the Chiefs. They were unable to prevent them from taking a sixth victory from their last eight appearances in South Africa, but once again showed fighting spirit in going down 35-24.
Sergeal Petersen grabbed a breakaway try in the match to keep his team in the hunt and score his third try of the competition, making him the leading South African try scorer to date.
The unbeaten Vodacom Bulls and The Sharks both saw their runs come to an abrupt halt.
The Bulls suffered a 41-19 defeat in Christchurch while The Sharks ran into the buffers of the Brumbies and were held at arm’s length in a 29-10 defeat in Durban.
The Vodacom Bulls’ defeat continued a bleak away record against the Crusaders in which they have taken only one point from eight visits to the South Island (a losing bonus point in 2009) and was the fifth time they had lost by 20 or more points in those visits.
The Sharks defeat by the Brumbies, mirrored their only other defeat at home by the team from Australia’s capital. In 2007 The Sharks suffered a 21-10 defeat and were also rendered try-less – the only other occasion on which the Brumbies have won on eight visits to Durban.
Elsewhere it was a good weekend for away teams with the Hurricanes winning in Dunedin and the Force upsetting the Reds in Brisbane as five of the six away teams recorded victories – the only exception being the Vodacom Bulls.
Waratahs (20) 26 / 27 (17) Toyota Cheetahs:
The lightning the Waratahs feared would strike twice did indeed lay them low as Toyota Cheetahs scrumhalf Sarel Pretorius popped up to ensure his old team suffered a third successive defeat at the hands of the Cheetahs.
Pretorius had been lured to Sydney in 2012 having been inspirational in the Cheetahs’ 23-3 victory in Sydney the year before. However his stay was short lived as he fell out of favour and returned to Bloemfontein. Predictably, he returned to haunt the Waratahs once more.
Pretorius provided the scoring pass for wing Raymond Rhule’s second try to seal the match in the 70th minute as the Cheetahs finished strongly to add a victory to their demolition of the Highlanders the week before.
However wing Willie le Roux was the star of the show. It was his deft chip and collect that set up field position for Rhule’s second and he had started the show with a brilliant piece of off-loading, having collected his own kick ahead, to set Robert Ebersohn on a long sprint to the try line.
Rhule’s first try – after good recycling and quick movement down the backline – had given his side a 14-6 lead which was overhauled by halftime through Waratahs tries by Betham and Ashley-Cooper. But Rhule’s second try, ten minutes from time, allowed the confident Cheetahs to close out the game.
Scorers:
Waratahs – Tries: Adam Ashley-Cooper, Peter Betham. Conversions: Brendan McKibbin (2). Penalties: Brendan McKibbin (4).
Toyota Cheetahs – Tries: Raymond Rhule (2), Robert Ebersohn. Conversions: Johan Goosen (3). Penalty goals: Goosen (2).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jarPk36qX2g[/youtube]
Southern Kings (13) 24 / 35 (18) Chiefs:
The Southern Kings appeared to be heading for a chastening defeat by the rampant defending champions as they slipped into a 32-13 deficit with more than a quarter of the match remaining. By then, explosive winger Leila Masaga had completed a hat-trick and, with a fourth try by Sam Cane, the visitors had claimed a bonus point to add to the one they took against the miserly DHL Stormers in Cape Town the week before.
The Kings had held on – just – throughout the first half with Sergeal Petersen’s third try of the season on the stroke of halftime having kept them in the hunt at 18-13 down. Petersen took advantage of a dropped Chiefs pass ten metres from his own line to sprint away and swallow dive under the poles.
However the Chiefs’ scoring spurt at the start of the second half looked set to put them out of sight but, by the final whistle, they were happy to close out the game as the 19-point lead was whittled down to eight at one point.
The Kings were forced to throw caution to the winds and the freedom it provided allow No 8 Jacques Engelbrecht to dive over in the corner after a succession of pick-and-go’s.
Demetri Catrakilis kicked two penalties to narrow the gap to eight points before Gareth Anscombe had the final word for the Chiefs.
Scorers:
Southern Kings – Tries: Jacques Engelbrecht, Sergeal Petersen. Conversion: Demetri Catrakilis. Penalty goals: Catrakilis (4).
Chiefs – Tries: Leila Masaga (3), Sam Cane. Conversions: Gareth Anscombe (3). Penalty goals: Anscombe (3).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMSGIkBjKEU[/youtube]
Crusaders (22) 41 / 19 (9) Vodacom Bulls:
The Vodacom Bulls had no answer to the commitment and determination of the Crusaders as they suffered an all-too-familiar 20-point defeat in Christchurch – the fifth time they lost by that margin or more in eight visits to the South Island.
Four penalties by Morne Steyn were all the Bulls had to show until the 67th minute when Deon Stegmann went over from a driven maul but, by then, the Crusaders had already scored five tries of their own as they dominated the collisions and recycled at pace.
Scorers:
Crusaders – Tries: Johnny McNicholl, Kieran Read, Robert Fruean, Tom Marshall, Willi Heinz, Wyatt Crockett. Conversions: Dan Carter (4). Penalty goal: Carter.
Vodacom Bulls – Try: Deon Stegmann. Conversion: Morné Steyn. Penalty goals: Steyn (4).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR8PMQ0UGuM[/youtube]
The Sharks (3) 10 / 29 (26) ACT Brumbies:
The Brumbies had claimed the four-try bonus point by the 35th minute as they left The Sharks in the starting blocks, silencing the crowd and making the second half a non-event as the visitors comfortably absorbed what pressure the Sharks could bring to bear in rainy Durban.
The home team ‘won’ the second half, 7-3, scoring the first points to be conceded by the Brumbies in the competition this season, but the well-drilled visitors were always in control.
Ryan Kankowski’s try – with 28 minutes remaining – provided a glimmer of hope but the only points to follow were from a Christian Lealiifano penalty.
Scorers:
The Sharks – Try: Ryan Kankowski. Conversion: Pat Lambie. Penalty goal: Lambie.
Brumbies – Tries: Henry Speight, Jesse Mogg, Joseph Tomane, Matt Toomua. Conversions: Christian Lealiifano (3). Penalty goal: Lealiifano.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuwwADcq3eY[/youtube]
Other results – Round 5:
Highlanders 19 Hurricanes 23 (Dunedin)
Reds 12 Force 19 (Brisbane)
Not a good weekend for the SA Super Rugby teams…
Only 8 Log points in total for the weekend, of which 4 was from the Stormers BYE WEEKEND!
Both the sharks and bulls were terrible, but its a long competion and all teams will struggle at one stage or another, so the loss doesn’t bother me that much. What do bother me is the Bulls and Sharks inability to adapt to a different game plan. It’s like a boxer that only train against a punching bag, as soon as he box against an opponant that hits back, he doesn’t know what to do. Both teams looks like they only have one game plan, which they try to enforce on their opponants. If this gameplan doesn’t work, they are clueless.
Excellent article GBS, nice to have a “wrap” for those who missed the weekend’s action.
3 @ Stormersboy:
Thanks… I got the Article from SARU’s site and then just jazzed it up a bit with the Video Clips from all 4 SA Games of the weekend.
Nice to have these video clips after the games gbs.
5 @ Puma:
I try my best, Oompie… for ALL of us.
Stormers clearly the better side this weekend and NO INJURIES
This is a bit off the topic but maybe somebody can help me with information. Over the last two days I had more than 20 visits to my website by people looking for information about ‘Piet van Deventer – Springbok’.
Why this sudden interest in Piet van Deventer? Piet van Deventer played for Griquas in 1970 and went on the 69/70 EOYT to the United Kingdom. As far as I know he never played in a test match and never a big name in SA rugby although pretty well known in rugby circles and highly regarded in Kimberley regions.
Does anybody know what sitimulated this recent interest in Van Deventer?
@ McLook:
What is your websites adress.
@ Loosehead:
The McLook rugby collection
http://springbokrugby.webs.com/
You won’t see anything about the Piet van Deventer searches; as website owner I can see what visitors were looking for that brought them to the site.
10 @ McLook:
Hello McLook,
Never knew you had your own website. Thought you only wrote Articles on Sports24 also the History articles that you do here from time to time that I always enjoy reading. Anyhow really enjoyed looking at that website of yours. Enjoyed the video clips as well. Just watching the 1986 Boks and how they played makes me always wonder how we would have played in the 1987 world cup. We had a superb team then and played some exciting rugby.
Also enjoyed the clip of the ABs/Baa Baa game of 1973, for me that is one of the greatest games ever played.
@ leon:
Although I agree fully with your view on the Bulls and Sharks? it must be said the Sharks could not ADAPT TO THE Brumbie game plan as their big loose forwards are all out injured.
I have no doubt had BIsmark, Alberts, Deysel, Whitehead and Butch been able to play things could have been very different. but thats like crying over spilt milk, They were not available thus the lighter loose trio got thumpted on the day.
For me Jake white must get the credit, For me he is SA’s best coach, and we better hope he does not get the Aussie coaching job.
from rugby365
..
Jake White is heading towards what will be a world first.
White, the World Cup-winning former Springbok coach, is mentor of the only unbeaten Super Rugby side – the Brumbies.
If they continue with their impressive form and win the competition at the end of the season, White will be able to lay claim to a very unique four-peat.
He will become the first coach to have won a Junior (Under-21) World Championship (2002), senior World Cup (2007), Tri-Nations trophy (2004) and a Super Rugby trophy.
….
jwhite must goooooooooooooooooooooo!!
nê gbs!!!
12 @ Sharks_forever:
I know it is easy to say now, but I did say we should start with PSDT at blindside, made sense to me because we were without Bissie and also Alberts that played when we had this light loose trio playing. They were magnificent last year together, but they can only play well if we have those two players playing. PSDT had to have started last Saturday to have given us a chance and Keegs should have been on the bench seeing he had no game time for many weeks.
We will learn, but now it is catch up again.
Also I am not totally sold on Franco.
13 @ Ashley:
He could very well win this tourney if his Brumbies keep on playing the way they done on Saturday. Though they have some injured players now, so have to see if they have depth.
sharky @ 12
doubt whether they’ll give the job to a foreigner again soon! seems like mckenzie is the frontrunner for the job anyway!!
12 @ Sharks_forever:
Felt once we lost Deysel we would struggle. Surely Plum should have known that and played PSDT at blindside?
16 @ Ashley:
Howzit Ash,
You could be right, but Jake must be impressing them a lot. Jake won us a world cup and they know that, he very well could coach the Wallabies. Deans had only ever coached Super Rugby previous. Jake has now coached every level of rugby and done well every time he has coached. I am wondering if England too wish they had him. They were totally hopeless against Wales.
puma @ 18
yeah, we’ll see how that unfolds. dont see deans keeping the job, thats almost a given. white, as you said, mustve impressed them a lot. who’s knows, if he can bring his mate eddie jones on board, he may well get the job!!
@ Puma@11:
The website is essentially the articles that have been posted on Sprort24 blog and here with some additional video material and lots more pictures.
It is a work in progress and is going slower than I would like it to progress due to work commitments. I just write pieces over weekends. I need a funder 🙂 so I can do it full time and obtian more video material. Lots of film matarial is lying and deteriorate in homs and at the old SAUK which one could add to a website like that. I also believe rugby fans in SA and accross the world have lots of video material that could be donated to a site like that for all to share. I make no profit with that site and pay the site fees out my own pocket. Some fans have contributed video material but most of the matrial on there is either my own stuff or clips posted on YouTube. If you or anybody else find good YouTube clips of historical games (or have stuff you want to donate) please let me know and I’ll add it to the site.
Yes the 1986 Spingbok team was something special. Lots of them went on the 1981 tour and had reached maturity in 1986 like Gerber, Heunis, the du Plessis brothers and there were players like Gert Small and Wahl Bartmann in the team who would have been really good in 1987.
The 1973 Baabaas game was certainly something special. That match as well as the 1972 victory of England over the Springboks and the fact that England won the AB’s in NZ in 1973 should have been a warning sign to the Springboks before the 1974 Lions series. It stil amaze me that SA rugby did not see what was coming when the Lions came over in 1974; we were caught with our pants on our knees.
@ Puma@11:
The website is essentially the articles that have been posted on Sprort24 blog and here with some additional video material and lots more pictures.
It is a work in progress and is going slower than I would like it to progress due to work commitments. I just write pieces over weekends. I need a funder 🙂 so I can do it full time and obtian more video material. Lots of film matarial is lying and deteriorate in homs and at the old SAUK which one could add to a website like that. I also believe rugby fans in SA and accross the world have lots of video material that could be donated to a site like that for all to share. I make no profit with that site and pay the site fees out my own pocket. Some fans have contributed video material but most of the matrial on there is either my own stuff or clips posted on YouTube. If you or anybody else find good YouTube clips of historical games (or have stuff you want to donate) please let me know and I’ll add it to the site.
Yes the 1986 Spingbok team was something special. Lots of them went on the 1981 tour and had reached maturity in 1986 like Gerber, Heunis, the du Plessis brothers and there were players like Gert Small and Wahl Bartmann in the team who would have been really good in 1987.
The 1973 Baabaas game was certainly something special. That match as well as the 1972 victory of England over the Springboks and the fact that England won the AB’s in NZ in 1973 should have been a warning sign to the Springboks before the 1974 Lions series. It stil amaze me that SA rugby did not see what was coming when the Lions came over in 1974; we were caught with our pants on our knees.
Darn this smiley face messed-up my previous comment. The last three paragraphs are a repeat that happened when added the bloomen smiley face. Apologies. Maybe GBS can fix it.
@ Puma:
@ Sharks_forever:
Do yourselves a favour, a big one! Go watch Natal Sharks vs ATC Brumbies 1996 in Australia,on YouTube. Somebody put it up there recently, the full match. I am watching it at the moment over lunch.
What a team that was: Teich, Mark, Wayne Fyvie, Jouba, Cabous, Jeremy, Dick, James, and of course, the all time best, the one and only, the farmer from Bergville, schything that Brumby backline into small pieces!
21 @ McLook:
There’s no problem for me to fix, Microsoft has to fix Internet Explorer… it only happens in Internet Explorer. If you had to use a decent Internet Browser like Firefox, you would not have had the problem.
22 @ Pietman:
Howzit Piet,
Yes I remember that game well. That was a seriously brilliant Sharks side. Some brilliant talent in the 96 side for sure. Unfortunately we came up against a equally good Blues team in the final. They too had some really big names in their side. Actually the mind boggles really how the Sharks with their players over the years have not won this tourney yet. The class of 96, 07 and 12 was our best. We should have won it in 07 if only we kicked it out when the hooter went, then Walsh gifted the Bulls a penalty when it should never have been. We should have won it in 07 felt we were robbed there. Then last year we lost some games that I thought we should have won, had we got a home final I am sure we would have won it, we were playing some seriously brilliant rugby in the end. The travel cost us huge. Still think we should have beaten Stormers and Bulls in our first two games last year, still puzzled how we were blown for so many penalties against us there. Then we let ourselves down against the Lions at Ellis Park. Anyhow all gone and dusted.
This year think we just have far too many of our really big players out injured. Will they be the same when the eventually come back to play for Sharks later? Not even sure. One never knows how a player will perform after being out for so long. So really don’t think this is our year. Then I could be wrong and we could come back strongly again, who knows.
23 @ grootblousmile:
It happens to me as well and it never used too, so why is that?
@ Puma:
Same here, sukkeling my gat af as well, also with News 24. GBS seems to favour Firefox, he should know, so I will download Firefox now and see how it goes.
25 @ Puma:
Your PC’s run Windows Updates every so often… so the situation changes constantly and the situation stays fluid.
Either upgrade to Internet Explorer 10 (available for Download – go to google and just type in Internet Explorer 10 download), alternatively and preferably download and install Firefox ( http://www.firefox.com – and remember to choose the Desktop Option, not Mobile) and set it as default Internet Browser.
Microsoft has NEVER, EVER given the world a perfect for it’s time Operating System or any perfect for it’s time Office Suite… and that is why they manage to sell the New Ones when they come out. Big example of 2 totally Shitty Operating Systems was Windows Millennium Edition (which followed Windows 98 briefly until Windows XP kicked in), then it was Windows XP and after Windows XP they sent the abomination which was Windows Vista into the World. 80% Of world PC users refused to move from XP to the resource hungry Vista, which slowed most PC’s down to a crawl… and they basically HAD TO bring Windows 7 into the world earlier than they expected.
The aim with Vista was to cater to the Changing Multimedia needs of modern society but the kernel (core) around which it was built and based was old and stoid, so Windows 7 was brought in to change all that and make the Operating System less resource-hungry… and better in many ways.
Windows 7 is good and stable – all 7 of the 32-Bit and all 7 of the 64-Bit versions… with a couple of issues and of course with Internet Explorer 8 (and upgraded to Internet Explorer 9 over time).. which has it’s own unique issues.
Windows 8 is out since 26 October 2012, and it is very good, gearing the world towards the “Touch and Slide” generation and it comes standard with Internet Explorer 10.
No need to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in a hurry though.
I am one of the Beta-testers for Microsoft on new Operating Systems and products… we get it yonks in advance and test drive it and then report back to Microsoft regarding the issues we find.
So yeah, I know a bit more than the average joe or the average IT man about the issues…. there are not many in SA or for that matter in the world like me…
26 @ Pietman:
Nou word jy wakker… Firefox is beslis beter…
Flok, I should start a PC advice Column and charge for my advice… hehehe
@ grootblousmile:
What’s the best thing about the new Internet Explorer?
You can use it to download Firefox.
@ grootblousmile:
If WIndows 7 was less resource hungry why do it need much much higher specs than XP?
If you want DX 11 then you have to buy one bloated piece of software with more holes than swiss cheese. Linux is not resource hungry and proves how light it actually can be on a system. If you don’t play games best option to use and its free comes with Firefox already installed
29 @ Bliksem:
Try and install your “EVERYDAY-SOFTWARE” like Microsoft Office or a Video Editing or a Cad program or anything for that matter and see what you come up with on Linux.
I’ll tell you what you come up with…. drastic compatibility issues…
One has to install Windows Emulators like WINE, to be able to install a lot of software…
… but hey, die polisieman sal mos beter weet……
Linux has it’s place, for sure… but for the average oke, no ways!
For instance, this website is hosted on a Linux Server….
Oh, and for PC Games on a Linux machine, WINE or CEDEGA (I think that’s the name) works… but with a hell of an effort…
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