Vishuis make it two from two for Shimlas

Bloemfontein’s Vishuis won the 2010 Steinhoff Koshuisrugby Championships, after demolishing Dagbreek 22-7 in an exciting final at Stellenbosch’s Danie Craven Stadium on Monday.

Vishuis, making use of their much bigger pack, dominated the contact situations and bullied their opponents from Stellenbosch off the ball – outscoring them by three tries to one.

The hero of the day – well there were 22 really – was Vishuis left-wing Beyers Louw, who scored two of his team’s tries, kicked two conversions and added a penalty for a contribution of 17 points. That left him on 97 points overall, the tournament’s leading points-scorer.

From the opening moments, both teams played the game at pace – with a clear intent to keep the ball in hand. However, the first success went to Vishuis, with the powerful Louw going over after six minutes – following some great interplay between forwards and backs.

Dagbreek had some early chances, but wasted those – in the 13th minute Deon Lourens missed a penalty at goal and four minutes later he failed to find touch with a penalty kick.

It got much worse for Dagbreek in the last five minutes of the first half – Ryan Nell was yellow-carded for a tip tackle. Louw slotted the penalty and then lock Jaco Lambrecht scored a try after some sublime interplay and Louw, again, added the conversion for a 17-0 half-time lead.

Louw also opened the scoring in the second half – again through some good hands by Vishuis, as they continued to dominate with their beefy pack. Even though Louw missed the conversion, his first miss of the day, the 22-0 lead left the home team with an enormous mountain to climb.

And when Dagbreek lost both their props to injury – the result of the incredible pressure piled on by the herculean Vishuis front row – the game was reduced to uncontested scrums and negated some of the advantage Vishuis had in the set-pieces.

Dagbreek still tried, gamely, but – in the face of some ferocious Vishuis defence – they simply could not find a way over the line and they were also prone to more errors as they began chasing the game.

There was eventually some consolation for the home team in the dying seconds, as left-wing Danie Kritzinger used his pace to exploit some unexpected space out wide – after Vishuis turned over possession.

Deon Lourens added the conversion to make the final score 22-7 and it was Vishuis, following in the footsteps of Huis Armentum, who took the Steinhoff Koshuis title back to Bloemfontein for the second year running.

The scorers:

For Steinhoff Dagbreek:
Try: Kritzinger
Con: Lourens

For Steinhoff Vishuis:
Tries: Louw 2, Lambrecht
Cons: Louw 2
Pen: Louw

Yellow card(s): Ryan Nell (Dagbreek, 34 – foul play, tip tackle)

The teams:

Dagbreek: 15 Ryan Nell, 14 Jonathan Snyman, 13 Lukas Kruger, 12 Loutjie Uys, 11 Danie Kritzinger, 10 Deon Lourens, 9 Prieur de Jager, 8 Frans de Bruin, 7 Marius Reitz, 6 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 5 Herman Nortjé, 4 Jaco Jacobs, 3 Stephan Slabbert, 2 Cornel Nieuwoudt (captain), 1 AJ Van Reenen.
Replacements: 16 Pierre Fouche, 17 Bakkies Reyneke, 18 Pieter Hendrik Greyling, 19 Jaco Janse van Vuuren, 20 Enem Kritzinger, 21 John Uys, 22 Danie van Wyk.

Vishuis: 15 AJ Koertzen, 14 Cameron Jacobs, 13 Barend Landman, 12 Francois van Straten, 11 Beyers Louw, 10 Willem Conradie, 9 Enrico Acker, 8 Gerhard Meyer, 7 Jos de Klerk (captain), 6 Ryno Fourie, 5 William Clift, 4 Jaco Lambrecht, 3 JP van Rooyen, 2 Martin Ferreira, 1 Richard Harris.
Replacements: 16 Cobus van der Westhuizen, 17 Milo Moholo, 18 J C Astle, 19 Eben van Zyl, 20 Erick Colyn, 21 Adrian Fransman, 22 Bennie Pretorius.

Referee: Francois Pretorius