Springs U21 powers past Northerns

It was a clean sweep for Springs as the U21 team won 36-0, first team 45-8 and second team 45-0

June 16, 2022

Lebohang Pita 3 minutes read

Benoni Northerns U21 coach, Jaco Havenga, chose to focus on the positives in their 36-0 mauling by Springs U21 in the Valke Peregrine U21 league on June 11 at Northerns grounds.

Havenga admitted that his charges should start turning their early dominance into points. They started the game against Springs like it was a 100m sprint, only to learn that rugby is an 80-minutes marathon.

“Rather than waiting for our opponents, we have to fetch them on the fence. In the beginning, we put Springs under immense pressure. We were knocking the ball around well but we didn’t capitalise,” Havenga said.

They began the game on the offense, restricting play in the opposition’s 22. Their forwards made advances, passing the ball into the wide areas, looking for a clean break.

However, it was nothing that threatened Springs as they absorbed the pressure. In the opening minutes, they were chasing. But once they found their rhythm, it was a walk in the park.

They began to impose themselves and their pack did all the hard work to give the backs space to attack.

Reynhardt van Vuuren was the first to instigate, picking the ball in his half and running across into Northerns territory.

In the 13th minute, Andries Kruger opened Springs’ account with a five-pointer after being set up by Ruan Claassens.

However, the try should have been disallowed as the referee missed a clear knock-on. Northerns’ eighth man received a pass and was tackled. He released, the ball bounced and Kruger knocked it and quickly picked it up to score.

Springs won most of the balls in the lineouts.

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Springs continued to dominate, with their loose forwards grinding hard and scavenging every ball in the rucks while the centres and wings kept the chase on. That show of force saw fatigue begin to creep in on the Northerns power pack.

With much of the play concentrated in the hosts’ half, Springs had their job cut out for them. It wasn’t long before Justin Jansen van Vuuren increased his team’s tally with another maximum. The left flank received and bull-dozed his opposite number to dart in unchallenged under the posts. Zander Erasmus converted to make it 12-0.

On the stroke of half-time, Tiaan Boshoff flew in under the posts after some clean work from a ruck. Erasmus converted to make it 19-0 at half-time.

The second half began with Northerns on the backfoot. Boshoff made it two for the day when he ran in unchallenged following some intelligence from Claassens. Northerns left huge spaces on their left side. From a scuffle, the scrum-half offloaded to his right where Boshoff received and ducked a challenge to score. Erasmus converted again.

The Northerns hooker was coach Jaco Havenga’s man of the match.

Northerns’ cause was also not helped by the referee who made numerous questionable decisions that saw some in the stands blow their gasket.

Dylan Coleman and Dewald Lotter scored the remaining tries to make it 36-0 at full-time.

Besides their 12-minutes first-half blitz, Northerns did not make a single attack, and it is something that Havenga reiterated they need to rectify.

“Our forwards didn’t work hard enough to give our backline a clean break. I spoke to them at half-time. They must work on cleaning harder to give the backline a break.