Team left bewildered by premature ending

Benoni Rugby Club’s first and second XVs welcomed NWU Vaal to their Hoërskool Hans Moore headquarters on Saturday, June 25.

The second XV pulled off a tight 19-17 win against a well-organised outfit from the Vaal.

They managed to score three tries, two of which were converted.

Outside centre Ruan du Plessis dived over in the ninth minute of the first half, for the first try.

NWU answered in the 13th minute and again in the 30th minute of the first half, and gave the visitors a lead of 10-5 at half time.

Benoni’s boys came back in the second half, all guns blazing despite their visitors’ third and final converted try in the 46th minute.

Fly-half Conrad Engelbrecht crashed over the white wash in the 60th minute and, shortly after, tighthead prop Felix Toma made sure five more points were added to the tally, while du Plessis converted both tries.

This was enough to give Benoni’s boys the edge in the match.

Brilliant defensive work for the next 15 minutes ensured a win for the hosts.

Meanwhile, the Benoni first side suffered another loss.

The “Young Guns” struggled to gain momentum from kick-off and the visitors made sure that it stayed like that for the entire first half.

NWU opened the scoring in the third minute with a converted try, followed by two well struck penalties in the 16th and 19th minutes and another two converted tries in the 20th and 26th minutes.

Only then did the gears kick in for the Young Guns, when open side flanker Jacques Dorfling surprised the visitors with a brilliant piece of handling and footwork and scored his first try for the afternoon, in the 35th minute.

Fly-half Marius Bezuidenhout added the conversion.

The Benoni Boys were trailing 27-7 at half-time.

Coach Rocco Duvenage and Hennie Pieterse had some stern words for their men and the Young Guns came back firing on all cylinders, preventing the students from NWU from scoring for the next 20 minutes.

Flanker Jacques Dorfling crashed over the chalk for his second try of the afternoon in the 42nd minute, and rounded off his hat trick in the 52nd minute, with Bezuidenhout making sure of the two-point conversion.

The visitors scored their last try for the afternoon in the 62nd minute, but could not convert it.

Outside centre Jeff Geral completed the day’s scoring with a brilliant try in the 74th minute.

The Young Guns were on a roll, but the match was stopped six minutes early by the referee with no explanation as to why, with a final score of 32-28.

Despite their close loss they bagged two bonus points for their four tries and a loss within seven points.

“If the match was not stopped early who knows what could have happened?” asked club secretary Tiana Oosthuizen.

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