Ikey Tigers' season of ifs and buts
FNB UCT Ikey Tigers will go into the final round of the FNB Varsity Cup league phase with an outside chance of a playoff berth, but a little bit of fortune could have made things more certain for them.
If sixth-placed UCT does not secure a place in the semifinals after their Round 9 clash against FNB CUT Ixias in Cape Town, their end-of-season review will likely focus on two things – Point of Origin (POR) Tries and their schedule.
On Monday evening, their coach Christiaan Esterhuizen alluded to the frustration ‘POR’ tries have brought them – especially for a team relying on fine margins to get into the playoffs for the first time since 2015.
“I’ve thought we’ve played very well [this season],” Esterhuizen told SuperSport TV. “Against Wits, for example, we scored four tries to their three but because of this unfortunate nine-point rule of this competition we ended up losing the match.”
All three of Wits’ tries ended up being nine-pointers, while UCT has conceded three others (two unconverted) while only scoring one themselves so far this season.
As it happened, Esterhuizen’s words came back to haunt him and his team again when UP-Tuks overturned a 26-point halftime deficit to secure a 26-26 draw on Monday. With six minutes left on the clock at Tuks Stadium, UCT lead 26-14. However, UP-Tuks then scored a try which originated outside the 22m-area… it was converted, resulting in a nine-point swing and a deficit of just three points. Tinus de Beer then coolly slotted a penalty to seal the hosts’ remarkable comeback.
The fact that the match took place in Pretoria was a sore point for the UCT coach too. His Ikey Tigers last played at their much-loved ‘Green Mile’ against FNB UJ in Round 4 on 25 February. That was also their last win.
“It’s tough to have four games on the road… it’s quite a thing,” Esterhuizen lamented about a schedule affected by UCT hosting the opening day of the Cape Epic mountain bike race the day before Round 7.
“However, two of those matches it was really close, and against Shimlas we didn’t score enough of those nine-point tries [they didn’t score any in the 40-51 loss].
Esterhuizen, in his third year as head coach, also needed no reminding that despite their misfortune they still retain a small hope of a semifinal place – though UJ would need to shock Shimlas.
“It’s a competition where the log is very congested from position three to eight so nothing is easy and margins are small. It sometimes comes down to close calls.”
