Pumas make hard work of victory over Leopards
The home team's performance was riddled with errors
The ISG Pumas stumbled their way to a 40-30 victory over the Leopards in a SuperSport Challenge match at Mbombela Stadium on Friday night.
The home side outscored their opponents by six tries to four, but the performance was far from convincing.
The Pumas started out well and were 14-0 up after nine minutes. Stefan Willemse scored first, off a five-metre lineout and resulting maul. Then Devon Williams dotted down after Ryan Nell broke the defensive line and passed to Alwayno Visagie who gave the pass to the Pumas fullback without a defender in sight. Chris Smith was on song with the conversions.
Francois Kleinhans claimed the next try, also off a driving maul and Smith put the Pumas into a 21-0 lead.
The Leopards launched a spirited fightback. First flyhalf, Schalk Hugo scored a drop goal before winger Eugene Hare scored the try of the match. He jinked through the Pumas defence from the left touch line, on the halfway line, and scored under the posts. Hugo made the score 21-10.
Pumas hooker HP van Schoor scored a try to put the Pumas 26 -10 up at half time.
The ISG Pumas initially dominated but let the Leopards back into the match with poor decision making and too many unforced errors.
The Leopards came out firing in the second half and soon closed the points gap with a try from number 8, Edmund Rheeder. Hugo converted and nailed a 49th minute penalty to take the score to 26-20.
The Pumas hit back when Chris Smith ran over the try line unmarked and added the two points.
JP Lewis then scored in the right corner and Smith converted for a rather unconvincing 40-20 lead.
The Leopards showed their never-say-die attitude with two tries in the final five minutes of the match, by Keagan Tait and Shane van Rooyen. Neither was converted.
The Leopards played with more hunger and the Pumas never seemed to get out of third gear.
The home team players have themselves to blame for the errors made. They won but were simply not value for money in the night.
With an away game against the Lions waiting next weekend the Pumas have to have a serious look at the match video and see what went wrong work on correcting the errors.
A performance like the one against the Leopards with earn them a hiding against the Lions.
With the bonus-point victory the mission of winning the North Section of the competition still on track, the ISG Pumas still need to refocus and regroup. They lacked hunger on Friday night – it’s weakness they cannot show again.
