An intense game of rugby was played by the Ethekwini Refractories Amanzimtoti who took on the Land Rover Durban Hillcrest Villagers on Saturday, 24 August and secured their place in the final of the Junior Murray Cup.
Toti dominated all facets of play, particularly the forward exchanges, but mistakes at crucial times, which has been the story of the season so far, kept a gallant Hillcrest in the game for the full 80 minutes.
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The players were the first to score and got into a 12-0 lead as early as the 20th minute vi tries from flanker Mike Uppink and winger Bennie Mashabane with a conversion from Divan Meintjies.
This seemed to lull the team into a false sense of security as Hillcrest forced their way back into the game with a converted try of their own, and with the scores on 12-7 at half time it was anybody’s game. At the resumption of the second half, Hillcrest set the cat among the pigeons with an intercept try against the run of play to give them a rather unexpected 14-12 lead.
This was, however, short lived, as Toti scored almost immediately thereafter with a well worked line out move, which saw hooker Etienne Ries barge over from the back of an advancing maul.
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Not long thereafter flying winger Kwesi Ansah took advantage of a numerical mismatch out wide, to score in the corner to give Toti a comfortable 26-12 lead with Meintjies having converted both tries. Hillcrest did manage to score one more try, but it was a case of too little too late, and the upset that they had hoped to create did not materialise as the ref soon thereafter called a halt to proceedings.
Toti will now face Richards Bay in the final to be played at Crusaders Rugby Club on Sunday, 1 September with kick off scheduled for 12.20pm.
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