Glenwood start with victory

This weekend saw Glenwood travel to Westville for their much anticipated first official fixture. With a very successful pre-season under the belt, and a competition win at the Port Natal Night Series, the Glenwood 1st XV was keen to get their season off on the right note.

As expected, the Glenwood team dominated the early exchanges and continually asked questions of the Westville defence through some physical running and speed out wide. Having played most of the rugby in the opening minutes Glenwood were rewarded through a Philane Ngcobo try after he utilised the space out wide giving the visitors an early advantage.

Glenwood refused to back off and continued to apply the pressure on a Westville defence that was showing signs of cracking. Having camped in Westville’s half for most of the game it was only a matter of time before a try-scoring opportunity would present itself. The Glenwood forwards produced some front-foot ball which allowed the backline to run freely and it was Curtis Jonas, Glenwood’s flyhalf who completed the passage of play as he dotted down over the line. Morné Joubert, the full-back, converted to take the score to 12-0.

Glenwood continually tried to run the ball out of their own half and, at times, put themselves under some unnecessary pressure. After making an error inside their own 22m line, the Glenwood team gave Westville a chance as the home team quickly worked the ball wide and scored. Having defended so well for almost the whole half, it was disappointing to see a try of this nature being scored.

This seemed to spark the Glenwood side who took control again and forced the Westville team to work deep inside their own half. It was Ngcobo again who broke down the left hand side and went over untouched to give the visitors a 10-point lead. At half time Glenwood led 17-7 and seemed to have it all under control.

Westville opened the scoring in the 2nd half but missed far too many first-time tackles giving Glenwood the necessary momentum to create space and attack freely. Nthokoza Vidima, the Glenwood lock, broke the line after a sustained period of attack and offloaded to Ngcobo who finished off the move with his third try of the day. Joubert converted and took the score to 24-10. Joubert also slotted a penalty towards the middle of the half to extend the Glenwood lead to 27-10.

As expected the game started to open up and the Glenwood backs stepped up to the plate. Joubert pierced a gap and put his head down to score a try of his own which only added to Westville’s problems.  With the result now clear the Glenwood coaches made some changes to the team in order to keep the intensity up.

Although the performance was far from perfect, the Glenwood team can take a lot of confidence out of the game as they seemed to score at will and never looked phased when under pressure. The final score was 32-15.

Scorers:

For Glenwood:

Tries: Philani Ngcobo 3, Morné Joubert, Curtis Jonas

Cons: Joubert 2

Pen: Joubert

For Westville:

Tries: Christopher Princen, Wayne Smith

Con: Kyan Braithwaite

Pen: Kyan Braithwaite

By Mike Vowles

Photos: Gareth Sedgbeer-Williams

Caption: Morné Joubert scoring a try.