Cheetahs lucky to make escape

THE Sunwolves ran the Cheetahs close but fell short. They really surprised the hosts with lung-bursting effort yesterday.

The Sunwolves aren’t expected to win in Pretoria on Friday night against a wounded Bulls side but will take heart from a vastly improved showing after defeats to the Hurricanes and the Southern Kings.

As for the Cheetahs, this was a big comedown after their win over the Bulls and they will be happy with the points but their tactical naivety was exposed.

Only their superior physicality and resilience saved them.

A shock-induced silence reverberated around Bloemfontein when Shota Emi sliced through weak Charles Marais’s and Zee Mkhabela’s tackles to score in the first minute.

With their attempts to outrun the visitors patently not working, punching hard around the fringes worked for the hosts with Torsten van Jaarsveld’s 15th-minute and Teboho Mohoje’s 36th-minute touchdowns originating from slack pillar defence. But those two defensive errors were not enough to mask the Sunwolves’ enterprising first half.

The Cheetahs were suckered into the unstructured Sunwolves’ game plan. This was apparent in Hayden Cripps’s 25th-minute try. There was a slight controversy in the buildup when Liaki Moli seemed to have lost the ball in contact.

A similar thing happened with Clinton Swarts’ try when he was ruled to have lost the ball in grounding it.

While the Sunwolves started to show the strain of their highoctane exploits with many players needing attention for cramps, they refused to back down with diminutive leftwing Kenki Fukuoka symbolising their tireless efforts.

His two tries caught the Cheetahs napping, though they responded with touchdowns from Swart and Ryno Benjamin.