Raiders heat up the Pirates Grand Challenge
All the action from the Bill Jardine Stadium.
Raiders Rugby Club played their last home game for the season against Randfontein Rugby Club on July 21 in the Pirates Grand Challenge. The Bill Jardine Stadium was not packed to capacity but cheerful fans and the team didn’t allow that to dampen their spirit.
In the report from Thaakir Dawood who is the public relations (PR) manager of Raiders, he stated that the home team dominated proceedings from the get-go with scrumhalf Marco Alberts opening the scoring for the men in blue and red scoring only 4 minutes into the game and from there the floodgates had opened for Raiders.
John Khubeka the youngest on the team then scored when he charged down a kick by Randfontein fullback and he had an open run to the try line.
According to Dawood, this was Khubeka’s debut season in the first team after coming through the Raiders ranks.
“Raiders flyer and also the top scorer in the Pirates Grand Challenge Itu Mpete scored 4 tries on the day and could easily have made it 5 but, unselfishly passed the ball to Hardus van Asweegen after the hooker intercepted the ball from Randfontein on his own try-line and ran 80 meters before offloading to Mpete, who then passed the ball to him once over the try-line,” explained Dawood.
The Randfontein team tried to make a late fight back, but Raiders made it difficult for them. The game ended with a final score of 69 – 17 putting Raiders fifth on the log, which has them 7 points behind Roodepoort Rugby Club who is currently in first place.
Raiders Point scorers: Itu Mpete 4(tries), Lincoln Koopman 1(try), Marco Alberts 2 (tries), Luanda Madikizela 1 (try), Hardus van Asweegen 1(try), John Khubeka 1(try) 7 (conversions).
The home club has three more games to go and a hopeful semi-final as well as the Gold Cup qualifiers within a touching distance.
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