Maties outplay Tuks to win Varsity Cup title
The Tuks rugby team were overshadowed in Stellenbosch on Monday by the well-oiled Maroon Machine from Maties, who won their fifth Varsity Cup title.
Sport can at times be like a game of snakes and ladders. That moment you think you are nearing the top end of your game you unexpectedly get swallowed, ending up sliding down again.
This was the exact scenario for Tuks in Monday’s Varsity Cup final. Maties thrashed Marius Verwey and his men 34-12 to win their fifth title.
Although Maties was considered to be the favourites, it was not expected they would be quite so dominant in the final. The relative inexperienced Tuks, after all, has been improving, playing with more confidence each time they took to the field.
However, when it mattered most the Tuks players ended up to become their own worst enemies. Especially during the first half.
In the build-up to the final Tuks managed to fine-tune their tactical kicking to an art, while their forwards were dominant creating a solid foundation from which scoring opportunities could be set up.
In this process passes very seldom went awry when the players had the ball in hand.
Unfortunately for the best part of Monday night’s game, they were not able to do any of this, which made it really easy for Maties to win the physical and tactical battles.
Tuks centre Lourens Pretorius admitted that they got only to blame themselves for what happened.
“It was frustrating that we could not get going. We kept on making mistakes we normally would not do,” said Pretorius.
During the second half, Tuks did manage to stage a fightback setting up two brilliant opportunities for Dewald Naudé to score. With the score at 21-12, it was thought that the visitors might still have a slight chance to cause an upset.
Unfortunately, it all ended when the Tuks fullback, Vaughen Isaacs, was shown a red card for a dangerous tackle on the Maties scrumhalf, Brendon Nell. From then on Maties retook control of the game and went on to score another 13 points.
Pretorius refuses to use Isaacs send-off as an excuse.
“Playing with only 14 players did lead to us losing some momentum. However, the reality was that we were not good enough. All credit to Maties. They were the better team and deserved to win,” he concluded.
Number eight Denzel Hill, who deservedly received the award as the best forward player of the Varsity Cup Tournament, ascribed Maties dominance to them being able to starve Tuks from the ball.
“It is hard to play good rugby if you don’t have the ball. Maties also impressed in the way they used defensive rucks to slow us down when we were on the attack,” said Hill after the game.
The popular and hardworking Tuks captain, Marius Verwey, was impressive in the way he led from the front for the duration of the game.
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