Physical dominance earns the points in CT
Round Two of the Steinhoff UCT Kohsuis League got underway on Wednesday night with reigning champions, the Cobras, taking on Kopano res on the Green Mile. The match was not going to be one for the underdogs though, as the Cobras dominated from the outset with some very physical rugby.
On defence, the Cobras dominated at the tackle point in the early stages of the game and on attack they let the ball do the work for them as they brushed off the Kopano challenge early on in the game.
Kopano had some decent runs but too often their outside centres were guilty of not getting the final pass away on an overlap and preferring to take contact instead. The fault is not all theirs though, as the Cobras defence was superb at rushing up quickly and putting pressure on the opposition midfield, sometimes at the extent of the off-side line which the referee was perhaps guilty of ignoring a little.
The Cobras were maybe guilty in the second half of taking their foot off the pedal. They allowed Kopano to run at them more but once again the telling passes failed to go to hand. The Kopano backline initially looked promising with the flyhalf/first centre channels making a lot of ground, thereafter they seemed to lose imagination with no option in their minds but to take contact.
In the end, it was a very complete performance by the Cobras that earned them a 28-0 win over their res opponents, with only one or two minor errors against them.
The Nadoes were also in action last night against Marquad res. The Nadoes certainly looked a more complete package on the night than they had in their previous outing as they ran in five unanswered tries.
Marquad could not repeat their heroics of last week when they downed the Panthers 15-12 and they were perhaps a little guilty of capitulating from the start against the formidable Nadoes reputation.
If truth be told, they were outsized and physically outmatched against a big Nadoes side, particularly in the forward pack where they conceded a number of turnovers at ruck time. After losing a lot of ball Marquad committed too many men to the rucks in order to try and win more ball which left a lot of space out wide for the Nadoes to exploit.
It seems Nadoes are finding their form early on in the competition which will leave many of the other teams wondering how to beat the old men of the Internal League.
In other action, Ubumbo went up against a determined Turtles side on the Green Mile.
The match started out evenly enough but through a horrendous amount of dropped balls by the Turtles, Ubumbo managed to gain the ascendancy. The Turtles conceded a number of scrums to wayward passes and general bad hands costing them possession and continuity throughout the game and Ubumbo made them pay for it by laying a solid platform for their pacy backline to work.
The match ended 19-5 in Ubumbo’s favour and though the Turtles may have lost they may take some solace in the fact that some desperate defending in the final ten minutes of the game, often on their own five-metre line, denied Ubumbo the bonus point try.
By Rory Holmes
