GLENWOOD High's Green Machine, demolished Maritzburg College in a clash at Kings Park on Saturday.
The first rugby team made seven tries to two, winning the match with the score 59-12. The Green Machine has now not lost in this inter-city derby since 2010.
Glenwood established their attack-minded mood with an onslaught from the first kick-off. An early offence involved a ball transfer between the two of the three most influential Glenwood players of the match, namely number eight, Marco Palvie and left wing Ilunga Mukendi. In spite of their overwhelming dominance, the first points of the match only came in the 10th minute via a penalty from Glenwood’s other significant contributor, fly half Jerome Bossr who scored 27 points via five conversions, four penalties and a try.
Soon it was 6-0 after a second Bossr penalty success. Poor exiting along with the inability to secure their own lineout ball contributed to College spending the first quarter of the match pinned back in their own half. From a College clearance kick that failed to find the safety of touch, Mukendi capitalised to score the first of his hat-trick of tries.
In the 18th minute Bossr’s angled tactical punt landed in no-man’s-land and the evil bounce turned out to be a kind one for chaser Mukendi who made light work of beating the last line of defence to grow the Glenwood lead to 18-0.
College struck back in the 27th minute when flyhalf Juan de Wet cleverly worked a half gap and offloaded a superbly timed backhand flick to inside centre Charl Frackers who breached the defensive line and raced in for the first of the Red-Black-White’s two tries. Fullback Ruben van Blerk kicked the extras, making it 18-7.
Glenwood ended the first half on a high. From an attacking five-metre scrum, patient work produced the desired end result when big tight head prop Khutha Mchunu twisted out of a tackle and crashed over under the sticks bringing the score to 25-7 at halftime.
Initially the halftime talk seemed to work for College. A much higher level of urgency saw them cut the lead down to 25-12 in the 39th minute when a sustained red-zone attacking period concluded with right wing Xolisa Guma doing well to avoid the attention of covering defenders and ground the ball over the line.
From thereon out it was Glenwood all the way. They scored 34 unanswered points through clinical attacking play that exposed their opponent’s defensive weaknesses. First a Bossr penalty kick made it 28-12, then Mukendi’s final try set up by a big hit and turnover won in the middle of the park by Palvie, saw the score increase to 35-12.
Next, outside centre Donny du Randt used two good football touches to kick the ball goal-side of the College defence before he cracked on the pace to out-sprint all others in the race to get to the in-goal area first and dive on the ball. Du Randt scored a second try after being the end recipient of good work and handling by prop Christopher Klopper and Palvie once more.
Bossr landed another penalty and later ended scoring matters when he collected a loose ball behind the defence after a College handling error. He showed a clean set of heels to get over in the left-hand corner before he slotted the difficult conversion.
