Bay rugby pre-season kicks off with two massive wins
RICHARDS Bay Rugby Club coaching staff and management members can be pleased with the current form of their players, after picking up two dominant wins over Ballito Dolphins in a preseason friendly played in Ballito on 8 May.
Like the majority of clubs in the country, these two clubs finally got a taste of competitive action and contact after being sidelined for a number of months owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The purpose of the fixture was to see where players were with their fitness levels and test player combinations ahead of the new season.
In the first encounter of the day, Richards Bay 2 picked up a comprehensive 49-3 win over their hosts.
The Richards Bay brutes proved too strong for their Ballito counterparts, running in eight unanswered tries with four conversions.
The first team match-up proved very physical for the first 20-minutes, until Ballito caved under the consistent pressure applied by the Bay lads.
Richards Bay took full advantage of the crumble and ran in seven tries, coupled with five conversions to cement a one-sided 45-8 win.
Ballito never gave up and as a result, managed to cross the whitewash for their only try of the day during the final move of the game.
'We are very happy with the outcome, given that it was the players' first official run in over a year,' said Richards Bay Rugby Club chairman, Magnus Oosthuizen.
'There is a lot more work that needs to be done before we meet College Rovers in our season opener on 12 June at home.
'There were some early concerns when two of our key backline players were injured early on in the game and had to be replaced.
'We are just hoping they will recover from their injuries before our first league game in five weeks' time.'
Richards Bay Rugby Club will play their next round of friendlies on 22 May, when they take on Piet Retief 1 and Hluhluwe away.