Swallows take down Police

Coach Mkaza happy with win

SWALLOWS managed to tame East London Police Rugby club when they beat them 28-21 during a Border Super League clash at Police Park over the weekend.

Swallows now have 24 points, while Police remained at 25 points after tasting their first defeat this season, and Swallows’ coach Yongama Mkaza knew it was not going to be easy to overpower the hosts in their own turf.

“They have been unbeaten in the past five games they played, and any team could have won the game. But what I liked it was good rugby, clean play, but at the end like I said in the build-up to this game, we would force matters to get four points, and indeed we did so,” said Mkaza.

He said Police did everything he expected them to do, and they almost slipped up because of the pressure the experienced Police players were exerting on his younger squad.

“We knew they were going to confront us in the forward line, and we knew they were going to come to us and play dirty and throw themselves on the rucks and slow our balls because they know we’ve got a quicker backline.

“But unfortunately for them we were well prepared for this game.”

Mkaza was not bothered by failing to get a bonus a point as “it’s nothing more than a bonus point”.

“We came to get a win, which has put us in a good position on the log-standings.

“We are going back to the drawing board, because there’s a lot of mistakes that we committed.

“We had balls that were supposed to have been converted to points. Like passing the ball without checking who you are passing to, missed tackles – we were tackling high and we didn’t play towards our game plan.

“But I am happy because we were never given a sniff.

“We were told during the course of the week that we’d lose this game, so we gladly take the four points home,” he said.

Police coach Fergus Kennedy said he was disappointed even though they played well at stages.

“We didn’t execute our plan the way we wanted to, but I am happy and I think we just fell short today.

“And the opponents did exactly what we expected them to do and it’s unfortunate our guys didn’t react. They were obviously much fitter and they were quick at the rucks.”

Kennedy said his major focus from now would be ball retention and defence, but the undesired result didn’t mess up their moment as it was their first defeat this season.

“I think our scrambling defence was okay. We did well to stop them at crucial times but we’ll have to work more on that.

“We are sitting with a few injuries and we had to bring in new players today, and those new guys played well – so I can’t complain about anything.”

Kennedy admitted they were put to the test in their own backyard by the Mdantsane-based outfit which is yet to lose a game this season.

“We haven’t had a competitive team that would challenge us upfront and at the back as well.

“The teams we’ve played were either very good at the back or at the front.

“But Swallows is a good all-round team, and I think the closest competition we’ve had was probably WSU All Blacks.

“But I think our guys maybe got a little stage fright, but after a while we held our composure and we came back strong,” said Kennedy.