Pumas sneak through to Vodacom Cup semis
It's going to be an all-northern section, semi-final clash in the Vodacom Cup series after this weekend's quarter-final clashes.
The Vodacom Blue Bulls had to travel to Bloemfontein for their 22-21 victory over the Toyota Cheetahs, while the Golden Lions repeated their 2013 form in Durban as they defeated the Cell C Sharks by 27-20, and in Kimberley the GWK Griquas thrashed the SWD Eagles with 84-15.
And right here in Nelspruit the Steval Pumas snuck through to the play-offs with a poor performance and a 13-8 victory over the 2012 champions, the DHL Western Province.
If there is a time the Lowveld team need to recompose, it’s this week as they will have to play an inform Griqua team Friday night.
During this weekend’s match the locals were in charge of the game from scratch, but there were too many handling errors, too many penalties from their scrums and not a lot can be said about their line-out work.
This match can surely be seen as the team’s worst performance in the last two seasons on the pitch yet. Even the top points scorer of the series, JC Roos had a shocking evening with his kicking boot. As early as five minutes into the game he missed an easy penalty, followed by another two soon after.
One never had the feeling that the Pumas would lose, but the team’s heartbeat just wasn’t in rhythm. Late in the second half the Province boys came back and luckily the defensive lines of the Pumas held up. Thanks to JW Bell’s try in the second half, they crawled to a 13-8 lead, which they held to the end.
“I have no words… We didn’t use all our opportunities, and when we had one, we kicked the ball away. This just doesn’t make sense! How can we dare think to win any game without the ball? This week will be hard as we lost Jerome Pretorius with an injured ankle, Corné Steenkamp is undergoing a concussion test after a hard hit early in the match and Wilmaure Louw has a knee niggle,” a disappointed coach, Jimmy Stonehouse said.
“Friday night’s game against the GWK Griquas is another vital must for us. Hopefully the doctor’s reports on Louw and Steenkamp are in our favour as they play a vital role in our game plan,” he said.
The semi-finals will kick off this Friday at 19:00 at the Mbombela Stadium and tickets are available at all Computicket outlets.
