SACS impress in festival showdown
Cape Town side SACS produced some direct and decisive running to score three tries in a satisfactory conclusion to the GBS Graeme College Rugby Festival in Makhanda on Saturday, outplaying the hosts 19-5.
It was a happier moment for the visitors after they lost their opening match to St Andrew’s on Thursday by one point, while Graeme were unable to replicate their form from earlier in the week when they beat Framesby 18-14.
SACS dominated most of the match and tries by wings Jack Benade and Nick Reynolds enabled them to take a 14-0 lead into the second half.
The final 30 minutes were keenly contested, but Graeme’s line-out failed to function efficiently and had to resort to scrums when they received penalties. Even then, there was not complete control, which restricted their chances to take advantage of those situations.
Abongile Golela scored for Graeme in the second half to keep them in the game, but a final try by big Connor King virtually settled the issue in favour of SACS.
Grey College rounded off their visit to the Eastern Cape with another convincing result, running in eight tries against St Andrew’s to win 48-0.
There were still a number of unnecessary errors by the Bloemfontein side, but such was their control and quick recycling when they had possession that St Andrew’s simply could not plug all the gaps.
Kingswood were impressive as they recorded their second win of the festival, crossing for four tries in outclassing Marlow Agricultural 34-5. It was a significant margin given Marlow’s propensity to provide tough opposition and the Kingswoodians have laid down a marker for the season.
Their tries came from Shingi Manyarara, Amazing Vheriwa, Visi Labase and Shiloh Nyakutwa, while flyhalf Praise Matsila contributed 14 points with the boot in kicking four conversions and two penalties.
During the morning, when Framesby came up against Hilton, a strong wind blew down the ground and made life difficult for the side playing against the breeze.
Framesby, with the advantage, will be disappointed that they did not make more of their chances against the tough KZN Midlands side and had only a penalty from Logan Muller to show for their efforts at the break.
The narrow lead was not enough as Hilton made better use of the conditions in the second half, scoring tries through Bunono Jabavu, Akhona Kunene and Dylan Niell to run out relatively comfortable winners 19-3.
It was a successful first trip to the Graeme festival for the Hiltonians, who were extremely impressive in their opening match on Thursday against Brandwag, winning 48-3.
Brandwag have much work ahead of them for this year, because they failed to score any points against Queen’s in the day’s opening game.
The Queenians produced some excellent moves to score four tries in a decisive 24-0 victory.
Day three results: Queen’s 22 Brandwag 0; Hilton 19 Framesby 3; Kingswood 34 Marlow 5; Grey College 48 St Andrew’s 0; SACS 19 Graeme College 5.