THE scene was set on Saturday afternoon for a memorable day of rugby, hosted at the Riverside Sports Grounds.
Through hard work and discipline during the season, the Pinetown Raiders earned their place to compete in the Findlay Cup Knock-out competition.
Going through the competition unopposed, the local team was set to take on Drakensberg to compete for the historic title of the Findlay Cup. With only ever winning the Findlay Cup once before in 1990, Pinetown Raiders were determined to end this dry spell of 23 years.
The game kicked off at 1.45pm with the Raiders putting the Drakensberg side deep in their own half, where they stayed for all of the first half. From the blow of the starting whistle, the Pinetown Raiders dominated in every aspect of the game.
Putting pressure early on in the first half, Pinetown Raiders were set to score early when Drakensberg were forced to kick themselves out of danger from deep in their 22m line.
The pace of the Raiders back trio was unmatched by Drakensberg, and when receiving the desperate kick, Sam Ogle outpaced the opposite winger to open the scoring for Raiders with a try.
Two more tries came through the youthful flair of the Raiders’ outside backs. From great set play from the Raiders, the experienced and tightly knit forwards allowed Zuzile “Chicken” Nkuku to make the pinpoint passes to the outside backs who set the ground on fire. The halftime break saw Raiders claim a comfortable lead of 19-0.
Running onto the field in the second half, the Raiders were not only competing against 15 other men on the field, but were also running against the wind. Although Raiders camped in the Drakensberg’s half for most of the second half, the opposition did have some great passages of play, which lead to Drakensberg scoring the opening points in the second half.
This was short lived as Jonothan Hammond scraped up a loose ball and darted to the try line, outpacing the opposition over the 70m sprint to extend the lead even further. The final score was 27-7.
“We have worked really hard over the course of the season to gain this title, a goal we set ourselves at the start and it is now reality. I am very proud of the men we have in our squad at Pinetown Raiders, and look forward to what the future has. We have crossed many hurdles this season, and have come out best from these.
”The final hurdle we have this season is to win our promotional game where we will be allowed entry into the first division.”
Pinetown Raiders will take on UKZN in the promotional game. Contact Pinetown Raiders on pinetown.rugby.club@gmail.com or ‘like’ its page on Facebook on www.facebook.com/Pinetown RugbyClub
