The SWD Eagles continued their upward trajectory when they brought in a convincing 33 – 27 win over the Border Bulldogs in their Absa Currie Cup First Division match at the Buffalo City Municipal Stadium in East London last Friday.
The Eagles lead 19 – 24 at half time.
“Of course we’re incredibly excited about this,” said Eagles manager, Martin de Vos.
“We’ve been saying for some time now that we needed back-to-back wins – one at home and one away – to develop our self-confidence, and now we have them.
“But better still we’ve got two away wins, and this is going to be very important for us in this week’s game against the EP Kings, who are the big guys in the first division.”
He said, though, that while the Eagles played an exceptional game against Border – it wasn’t faultless.
“We made a couple of mistakes and unforced errors, and this is something we’re going to have to work on this week.
“We need to be more committed in terms of our decision-making – and if we can do that, we’ll be able to put in a more clinical performance.”
Mr. de Vos said that John Herbst – at scrumhalf – and eighth man Michael Vermaak stood out as the stars of the Eagle’s game last week.
“A game is built on the foundation laid down by the forwards, and they did this solidly, giving our back line the ball on the front foot, which allowed them to run in five tries – including John’s two absolute beauties.
“It was also good to see the positive way we recycled the ball through a number of phases on a number of occasions.”
But the Eagles didn’t have the easy game that they had in their last meeting against Border when they won 46-8 on their home turf in George during the first round of the Curry Cup on the 29th of June.
“They scored three tries in the first half, and defended strongly in the second,” said Mr. de Vos. “But our five tries secured our bonus point, and we’re very happy about that.”
He said that Lehan Koekemoer retired from the game after injuring his knee, as did Dean Hopp (ankle), and that they’ll be assessed on Monday morning.
“Then we’ll make our decisions as to who will start against the Kings.”
He urged rugby-lovers to attend the derby at Outeniqua Park this coming Friday: “Our under-21s will play the Kings under-21s at 17:05, and the main game will start at 19:10 – and it’s going to be a cooker of an evening,” he said.
Final score
Absa Currie Cup First Division, Buffalo City Municipal Stadium (East London), 17 August 2012: SWD Eagles 33 – Border Bulldogs 27 (half time: 19 – 24).
Scorers
Border Bulldogs
Tries: Chumani Booi, Francois Laatz (2)
Conversions: Johan Myburgh (3)
Penalties: Johan Myburgh (2)
SWD Eagles
Tries: John Herbst (2), Shaun Raubenheimer, Theuns Kotze, JJ Taljard
Conversions: Theuns Kotze (4).
Follow the SWD Eagles on their web site: www.swdeagles.co.za; on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SWDEaglesRugby; and on Twitter: @SWDEagles or www.twitter.com/swdeagles.
