News

Province make hard work of Griquas

Friday 19th September 2008

Western Province continued their charge to the Currie Cup semi-finals on Friday with a 30-18 win over the Griquas, but the win was harder work than it should have been.

Still, they got the bonus point, and should the Cheetahs fail to get such a trinket in Pretoria tomorrow, WP will have sneaked into the top four for a week, rather than an evening.

The Griquas are not the Falcons, and were never going to be beaten by 90-odd points. The defence was sturdy and resistant to the stretching that Province tried to inflict upon it for much of the game. In attack, had there been a little more self-confidence, they might have scored more than the brace they bagged.

The game began on a sour note, with the sparse crowd absolutely disobeying a minutes of silence requested for the late Rudi Paulse. It also continued on a sour note, with boos while the Griquas kicked, and abuse hurled at the Griquas coaching staff on the sidelines. French stadia are also difficult places to visit, but the spite prevalent here is absent there. It was not very nice at all.

Province were denied an early try by a TMO decision which ruled that a pass some 40m and two passes back in the build-up to Sireli Naqelevuki's touchdown had been forward, a decision which must have made the efforts in the try-scoring rather futile.

They did get a bona fide try shortly afterwards through Ricky Januarie, who dummied and cut through to the posts for an early 7-0 scoreline.

But the Griquas had the better of the opening exchanges by and large, and Conrad Barnard landed two penalties to make it 7-6 - he missed two others in the opening quarter as well.

Fran�ois Louw scored WP's second try as the home side found some grunt to go with their flair, but Peter Grant's option of taking the posts on the half-hour mark to make it 15-6 was a sure sign that the home side feared an upset if they did not make the game safe first.

Grant landed another early in the second half, and then Chavhanga scored the third try off an inside pass, but a stupid bat-down of a scoring pass by Wylie Human handed the Griquas seven points back to make it 25-13.

Province abandoned throwing the ball about willy-nilly briefly, and instead hammered away at the Griquas' left. It reaped the bonus point dividend, and Jean de Villiers was the man forced over.

Gareth Krause surged over late on for the Griquas, and there was a late TMO call with Naas Olivier crossing the line for the Griquas, but the fly-half cut proceedings short by explaining himself to the referee that he hadn't scored. On a night when the Province fans were a pretty poor show, Olivier's show of good sportsmanship was very welcome.

The scorers:

For Western Province:
Tries: Januarie, Louw, Chavhanga, De Villiers
Cons: Grant 2
Pens: Grant 2

For the Griquas:
Tries: Penalty try, Krause
Con: Barnard
Pens: Barnard 2

Western Province: 15 Conrad Jantjes, 14 Tonderai Chavhanga, 13 Sireli Naqelevuki, 12 Jean De Villiers (c), 11 Wylie Human, 10 Peter Grant, 9 Ricky Januarie, 8 Luke Watson, 7 Francois Louw, 6 Schalk Burger, 5 Andries Bekker, 4 Adriaan Fondse, 3 JC Kritzinger, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Wicus Blaauw.
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Schalk Ferreira, 18 AJ Venter, 19 Nick Koster, 20 Bolla Conradie, 21 Joe Pietersen, 22 Morgan Newman.

Griquas: 15 Riaan Viljoen, 14 Bjorn Basson, 13 Jaco Bekker, 12 Herkie Kruger, 11 MJ Mentz, 10 Conrad Barnard, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Gareth Krause (c), 7 Frans Viljoen, 6 Rohan Kitshoff, 5 Stefan Gerber, 4 Wayne van Heerden, 3 Ruaan du Preez, 2 Hans van Dyk, 1 Regardt Dreyer.
Replacements: 16 Dean Hopp, 17 Bees Roux, 18 Jacques Lombaard, 19 Brendon Snyman, 20 Dougie Helmuth, 21 Naas Olivier, 22 Barry Geel.

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan
Touch judges: Chris Healey, Roderick Barry
Television match official: Shaun Veldsman