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Griquas in full flight over Falcons

Friday 20th July 2007

The Falcons sunk to a lowly 63-10 defeat to Griquas, who dominated the Currie Cup proceedings from start to finish at Absa Park in Kimberley on Friday afternoon.

Griquas fly-half Conrad Barnard scored a handy 23 points off the boot as the home team took maximum points from an extremely one-sided game.

For the Falcons - or Valke as they are more commonly known - it is back to the drawing board as they are still yet to record a single win in their Currie Cup campaign.

Starting from the front row, Griquas made sure they tore their visitors apart as they pushed the Men in Red backwards off the first scrum of the game. That powerful surge signalled the Falcons were in for a long day at the office.

Funnily enough, it was the visiting team that scored first from a well-taken penalty kick by number ten Jacques Schutte. The three points came in as many minutes for the Falcons, but it would take 40 more gruelling ones for them to score again in the match.

Barnard countered his opposite number with a penalty shot of his own to open his impressive kicking display of the afternoon.

Both teams showed their intentions early on by running the ball in what was perfect conditions for rugby - minus the concrete-like pitch underfoot!

The Falcons, inspired by scrum-half Sarel Pretorius, erased any thoughts of a massacre by commiting themselves to the tackle and preventing three tries inside the opening ten minutes.

Perhaps the moment of the match came from a Pretorius ankle tap on Griquas outside centre Ronnie Cooke who fell just inches from the line to be denied the opening try of the game.

The high fives of the Falcons would soon turn to low fives when Frans Viljoen made up for his early attempt at a number eight pick and drive try that found him with his shorts hanging by his knees with his backside on display for all those unfortunate enough to see.

That cheeky 'try' was denied by the TMO, which Viljoen thought was a bum deal until he finally found a crack in the Falcons' defence moments later with another go.

Barnard converted five metres inside the touchline for the first of seven conversions he would successfully make during the course of the match.

Griquas captain and number nine Tetius Carse didn't take long to duck under a Falcons tackle for his side's second try after his forwards did all the hard work from the half-way line.

Lock Lodie Britz slapped the ball from the Falcons' line-out into the hands of hooker Hans van Dyk who ran a good 30 meteres before being dragged to the ground. The Griquas forwards were quick in support though and bashed their way further towards the line until Carse was left to finish everything off.

Barnard missed the simple conversion, but was on song again just three minutes later when speedy wing Baldwin McBean (of no Scottish heritage) took a well-timed inside pass - almost telepathically - from the Griquas pivot to dart down under the sticks untouched.

Charismatic flanker Jacques Burger, who has a similar look to the Simpsons character Sideshow Bob, was over in the corner for Griquas' fourth try and the bonus point try, that was followed with yet another Barnard conversion.

The final play of the half came off a Barnard penalty on the stroke of half-time that rubbed salt into the Falcons' wounds as the home team left the field 32-3 up with another 40 minutes to play.

By this time, the stands were beginning to fill up as the Kimberley locals slowly made their way into the stadium from work on a Friday afternoon. This, of course, meant the cheers had become louder as yet more tries came flooding past the hapless Falcons.

Nothing could stop Griquas as Falcons coach Rudy Joubert replaced his pack with all the forward reserves he could use. Of course this did not help one bit.

Burger went over for his second after the TMO had this time, and rather surprisingly, ajudged the flanker to have dotted the ball on the chalk. The ref even looked more bewildered as he blew his whistle and awarded the try.

The Falcons managed to score their first and only try of the match when hard-working number eight Michael Vermaak took an inside ball from his pivot Schutte that caught the Griquas defenders napping. Schutte added the extras and that is all we can say about the Falcons' involvement in the game to be honest.

From then on it was one-way traffic yet again and even though the Falcons' strip was the colour red to resemble 'stop' - all the signs pointed to green as the Griquas drove over one tackle after another.

At his stage the match became very scrappy on both sides, but with the Griquas attack never looking like fading. The home team finally completed a full backline movement on the run with left-wing Vuyani Dlomo finishing off for his team.

Replacement hooker Louwtjie Louw burst away to score his first try after replacement back Lafras Uys made the initial break down the middle of the field. Two minutes later captain Carse ran a good 40 metres to score his second try and wrap up the match - much to the relief of the tired Falcons.

Man of the match: Griquas prop Eugene van Staden earns this award outright for his powerful scrummaging skills and workrate around the field belying his size, that started and ended with the Falcons eating dust.

The scorers:

For Griquas:
Tries: Viljoen, Carse 2, McBean, Burger 2, Dlomo, Louw
Cons: Barnard 7
Pens: Barnard 3

For Falcons:
Tries: Vermaak
Cons: Schutte
Pens: Schutte

The Teams:

Griquas: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Baldwin McBean, 13 Ronnie Cooke, 12 Barry Geel, 11 Vuyani Dlomo, 10 Conrad Barnard, 9 Tetius Carse (captain), 8 Frans Viljoen, 7 Ockie van Zyl, 6 Jacques Burger, 5 Lodie Britz, 4 Evan Bothes, 3 Eugene van Staden, 2 Hans van Dyk, 1 Regardt Dreyer.
Replacements: 16 Louwtjie Louw, 17 Bees Roux, 18 Albertus Buckle, 19 Cilliers Coetzer, 20 Lafras Uys, 21 Wayne van Heerden, 22 Danie de Beer.

Falcons: 15 Riaan Viljoen, 14 Akuila Nawerecagi, 13 Bertus Swanepoel, 12 Hanno Coetzee, 11 Mpho Matsaung, 10 Jacques Schutte, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Michael Vermaak, 7 Jacques Nieuwenhuis, 6 Piet Krause (captain), 5 Nico Luus, 4 Dewald Senekal, 3 Philip Lemmer, 2 David Britz, 1 Gunder Wiliamson.
Replacements: 16 Gavin Whittingham, 17 Ryno Barnes, 18 Sangoni Mxoli, 19 Hein Potgeiter, 20 Morne Adams, 21 Schalk van der Merwe, 22 Len Olivier.

Referee: Christie du Preez (SARU)
Touch judges: Fran�ois Veldsman (Boland), Roderick Barry (Western Province)
Television match official: Shaun Veldsman (Boland)
Assessor: Gerrit Coetzer