Border women continue domination over Bulls
Border Women defeated their Blue Bulls counterparts 17-11 in a tight affair in their opening match of the Women’s Premier Division at Police Park, East London on Saturday.
Tries from captain Lusanda Dumke, Yonela Ngxingolo and Aviwe Basana gave Nwabisa Ngxatu’s side a kick-start win to the season.
The victory for the East London women ensured they continue to traumatise the Pretoria outfit — Border has won all their matches against the Bulls in the last five seasons.
The Bulls began the match with much intent, fuelled by the desire to end their horrible record against Border.
In the opening minutes of the match they tried to impose themselves physically.
Border weathered that early onslaught and then went about settling into the game.
Once they shifted through the gears they looked like their old selves.
Their fight was led by inspirational Springbok flanker Lusanda Dumke, who got the first try of the game after picking up the ball and following up with a piercing, powerful run to dot down.
A few minutes later, prop Yonela Ngxingolo powered her way to five points.
The Bulls regained their momentum as they went in search of their first points.
The Border defensive wall was called upon when the Bulls had multiple attacking phases close to their try line.
However, Border stood firm and that frustrated the Bulls.
Things went from bad to worse for the Bulls when Rumandi Potgieter was sent to the sin bin.
The Bulls’ first points came courtesy of a penalty by flyhalf Libbie Janse van Rensburg.
The teams went to halftime with Border leading 10-3.
The Bulls began the second half in similar fashion as they did with the first stanza. They camped in the Border half and made their visit count when Janse van Rensburg produced a drop kick out of nowhere to make it 10-6.
In the second half Border played with more cohesion.
The forwards and backs were more in sync with the ball moving through the hands quicker.
The forwards were also dominant in the set pieces and in the breakdowns. Border put some daylight between themselves and their opponents when substitute Aviwe Basana scored a converted try.
With the score at 17-6, Border thought they had secured the win easily but were put under pressure in the concluding stages of the game.
They then changed to a kicking game looking for territorial gain. Their plan worked when flanker Catta Jacobs scored five points at the death.
Border head coach Nwabisa Ngxatu was pleased with the win, but emphasised they still needed to improve on their conditioning and other game aspects.
“So we need to work on our fitness. We need to gain match fitness for the girls to return to their level.
“We are short of game time — the time we had to prepare was not enough; we still need to work.
“We have to work on our set pieces, the girls are going to play every weekend and they will be playing better than today [Saturday].
“We gave them a structure of how we want them to play, but I understand it was our first match; it wasn’t easy. The conditions at the end made it difficult,” Ngxatu said.