Cheetahs hold off 14-man Kings

Editor

The Cheetahs continued with their fine recent form when they claimed a 40-36 victory over the Southern Kings in Bloemfontein on Saturday.

The home side outscored the Kings by six tries to five with Shaun Venter, Tian Schoeman, William Small-Smith, Malcolm Jaer, Junior Pokomela and Luan de Bruin crossing for the Cheetahs. Tian Schoeman kicked four conversions.

For the Kings, CJ Velleman, Yaw Penxe, Tienie Burger and Alandre van Rooyen and Berton Klaasen dotted down and the rest of their points came via the boot of Masixole Banda.

The two teams deserve credit for making this the entertaining spectacle that it was although the Cheetahs had the game sewn up by the 67th minute when De Bruin’s try gave them a 40-15 lead before the Kings fought back to score three tries during the game’s latter stages.

Both sides’ discipline let them down, however, and the Kings had to play the last 17 minutes with 14 men after CJ Velleman was red carded for a dangerous challenge to Junior Pokomela’s face.

Earlier – during the first half – their Fijian centre Meli Rokoua was also yellow carded and Cheetahs duo Joseph Dweba and Nico Lee were also sent to the sin-bin during the latter stages of the opening period.

As expected, this was a fast-paced match with plenty of end-to-end action and the home side had the bulk of the possession and territory during the game’s early stages.

After the Kings took the lead via an early Banda penalty, the Cheetahs took control of proceedings and replied through a Venter try shortly afterwards before Schoeman and Small-Smith also crossed the whitewash.

The Kings finished the half stronger though and shortly before half-time Velleman crossed for their first try which meant the Cheetahs led 19-10 at the interval.

The visitors scored the first points of the second half when Penxe crossed the whitewash but the Cheetahs regained the initiative when Jaer and Pokomela scored tries before Velleman was sent off.

And although the Cheetahs scored a try through De Bruin, the Kings finished stronger to score 21 unanswered points which added some respectabilty to the final score.