THE SUNDAY HEAD TO HEAD

Finally!

It has been 11 long years but the trophy drought is finally over for WP.

They won the Currie Cup by beating the Sharks in an epic final on Saturday.

I say won, yes won because there will be those who say the Sharks lost it.

But let’s have a look at it. WP absorbed everything the Sharks through at them in the first half.

WP made tackle after tackle. At times wondering how they would get their hands on the ball. This gave the Sharks the lead which they held until the X-factor of Juan de Jongh put WP in the lead with a brilliant piece of stepping to score the only try of the match.

This gave WP the belief that they could win it. And apart from 1 scrum where the Sharks dismantled the WP scrum, WP had the upper hand.

WP were a team on Saturday, they were playing for each other. That is the core to a trophy winning team.

All credit must go to WP for absorbing everything the Sharks threw at them and turning it around to be victorious.

It has been a long road but finally WP have done it!

They beat the Sharks and are 2012 Currie Cup champions.

WP, jou lekker ding!


BY: Joker Stephen

The game is the leveller.

The Sharks Lost it.

 So today rugby fans all over the Western Cape, and possibly other parts of the country, must have woken up with just about the most enjoyable hangover ever!

Celebrations all around, much high-fiving, dop drinking and backslapping as such a tensely exciting match was won by their beloved ‘Proooooovince’…

The real rugby aficionado’s question should be whether Western Province really won this match in genuine performance terms, or was this more a case of The Sharks losing it? Sober analysis should point to the fact that The Sharks blew chunks and choked out this match big time.

Let us count what The Sharks had in their favour leading up to the Currie Cup Final. A pack of mostly Springboks, the flyhalf who arguably should be South Africa’s number one pick, JP Pietersen’s smokin’ hot form, home ground advantage and a record of regularly beating WP/ The Stormers. Even if WP had their very best lineup available, it should have amounted to easy pickings for The Sharks right? Ummm well not quite right apparently.

During the match itself The Sharks managed to build up a first half lead and looked in control. They were dominating the young WP pack in the scrums and seemed to be getting the rub of the green in all facets, barring lineouts.

The Sharks’ coaching staff could reasonably expect that their lineouts would start working sooner rather than later and that the match would be closed out. But their defense let them down and Juan de Jongh went through, panic buttons set in, the lineouts and scrums disintegrated and WP really exploited The Sharks’ ineptitude.

So well done to WP, they did indeed play like a team on a real mission but really, Province won by producing the slightly better of two actual poor efforts…

Sharks rugby actually is better than that!

BY: Newman Clinton

We aiming for second place

THE SUNDAY HEAD TO HEAD