Boksburg
Owls coach Marcell Fourie
I thought it was a titanic battle with the forwards dominating each other. They dominated the scrums and we dominated the line-outs. Nothing was going through my mind when we were trailing before the end of the game, I actually enjoyed the game, there was action all the time – you couldn’t keep your eyes off it.
I was very happy when we won to be honest; I thought that we had thrown it away. I was sitting with my friends and they told me that we had thrown it away but luckily, we turned things around.
Anyone could’ve won that match.
Owls skipper Travis Howell
It wasn’t the way we wanted it to go. We made a lot of mistakes but luck was on our side.
I just tried to calm the guys down throughout the match because they tend to get out of hand and lose focus. Anything can happen in a rugby match, as you saw us winning it in the last second.
It was very emotional for me, we’ve been working very hard to get to this stage and it was almost taken away from us in a matter of seconds. A lot of tears were shed by the team after the game, tears of joy and pride.
ER United
United tutor Derrick Sampson
My only concern of the game was I didn’t think we played to our potential. I also think they (the union) could’ve gotten a better ref. We dominated the scrums, we lost a few line-outs but there was just something not right about the match.
This was a high profile match which needed a fitting ref.
The penalties kept us backwards: it was penalty after penalty after penalty. This was the game that we got the most penalties against us; we didn’t even concede this amount of penalties against Brakpan. You can’t play rugby like that and the guys got a bit frustrated.
United captain Fanie van Staden
I think it was a big derby. Credit to Boksburg for winning it but I think we were the better side, we dominated upfront.
It was a very difficult game for the ref. I think the result would’ve been otherwise if it was a better ref but I don’t want to blame him because Boksburg were also playing under the same referee.
We weren’t clinical enough. Well done to Boksburg.
We got too many penalties against us in the first-half, we didn’t have ball but we conceded a ridiculous number of penalties.
I was confused with their last try. Time was up and it was our ruck; the ref told Boksburg to get their hands out of the ruck but they carried on playing it. The ball was suddenly on their side and the next thing you know, it’s a try. It’s obviously heart-breaking because we work hard but congratulations to Boksburg. – @SabeloBoksburg
