Bester's boys chase history
The low-scoring affair can be attributed to horrendous conditions which saw the rain bucket down 15 minutes into the contest and nullified both teams' style of playing running rugby. While the Ixias are overjoyed with their achievement, coach Skillie Bester admits they have not achieved anything yet.
"One of our goals leading up to the competition was to make history and prove to ourselves, and everyone else for that matter, that we are not in this competition to minimise points differences. We are here to make history throughout and we targeted this game to be the catalyst of that. It was our first home game and, traditionally, home games should be easier.
"I won't allow the team to dwell on the victory for long because we haven't achieved anything yet and there is still plenty of hard work to be done. So my main task now, is to get the guys back down to earth.
"It was a nice win but we have a tough task of preparing to head to Johannesburg to face UJ who has one hell of a team. It's certainly going to be tough up there," Bester told rugby365.com.
On the rain affected match itself, Bester was obviously overjoyed with the result but gave credit to the defence efforts of both sides, while the form of his goal kicker is something of a concern at this stage.
"We are over the moon with the result because we feel that the conditions suited UCT more, as they are accustomed to playing in the rain. We scored a really good try and needed the conversion to hand us the victory.
"The worrying thing though, was that he [the kicker] missed four easy chances during the match that could have made the victory a lot easier for us.
"Credit must go to the close quarter defence of both teams. The conditions dictated that running rugby was out of the question and things were forced to be kept tight. So from a defensive point of view, we are really happy with the effort we put in," he added.
CUT has one major injury at this stage as try-scorer Pieter Toua was forced to leave the field after suffering a broken leg and will play no further part in the competition.
By Tauriq Ebrahim
