Lions and Bulls move to the top of the Currie Cup log

Highveld sides the Lions and Bulls continued their unbeaten runs in the Currie Cup with their third straight wins to move to the summit of the log after another entertaining weekend of action.

Both teams were made to work hard for their wins, but eventually emerged victorious, with the Lions beating the Griquas 25-13 at Ellis Park, while the Bulls also claimed a 25-13 win over the Cheetahs at Loftus Versfeld, both on Friday afternoon.

The Lions got off to a fast start and took a 12-0 lead in the first quarter, but the Griquas fought back to make it 12-8 at halftime and then 15-13 in the second half, before the hosts pulled away at the end to seal a tricky win.

Lions coach Mziwakhe Nkosi was happy with the result, but was not impressed with the performance and admitted that his team still had a lot of work to do to continue their impressive start to the competition.

“We are happy to get the result. A win is a win and we will take it. But it was far from a satisfactory performance. We let ourselves down in the middle part of the game. We let them in the game and weren’t accurate in our execution,” explained Nkosi.

“There were a couple of 22 metre entries we didn’t take advantage of in the first half. Our discipline as the game wore on also let us down a little bit.

“But it’s four points at home, so hopefully we can keep building on the momentum. We definitely have one or two things to work on before we welcome the Sharks (this coming weekend).”

Top table clash

In the top of the table clash between the Bulls and Cheetahs, the hosts held a 10-6 lead for much of the first half, before a late try just before the break moved them 17-6 up at halftime.

The second half had few scoring opportunities, but the Bulls extended their lead to 22-6, before the Cheetahs brought it down to 22-13, with a late penalty to the hosts then settling the contest in the end.

The third match on Friday saw the Pumas pick up an impressive 31-21 win over the Sharks at Kings Park to hand the Durban side their third straight loss of the season.

The final game of the weekend saw Western Province pick up their first win of the competition, a thumping 64-15 win over the Griffons in the bottom of the table clash in Welkom on Sunday afternoon.

Inside centre Jonathan Roche was in sublime form to score a hattrick, while Angelo Davids and CJ Velleman dotted down twice, as the visitors clinched a 10 try to two rout over the hosts, which left them bottom of the log along with the Sharks as the only two teams without a win.