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Cape Town - Western Province were made to fight all the way for their 19-16 victory over Argentina’s spirited Pampas XV in a Vodacom Cup South section match played at a rainy Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday.
WP led 10-0 at half-time.
The Pampas XV however will feel rightly aggrieved after a number of poor decisions by referee Pro Legoete and his assistants allowed WP to sneak home in a match that should have ended in a draw.
That’s how things seemed destined to finish when Pampas fullback Martin Rodriguez levelled the scores with a penalty on the stroke of fulltime, only for his side to be penalised for not rolling away from a ruck at the restart to allow WP No 15 Jurgens Visser to kick the winning points.
SA head of referees André Watson should perhaps look closely at the tape of this match, particularly the closing minutes, to decide whether the Argentinians were indeed the victims of calls that might have resulted in a different ending.
Earlier this month at Newlands, another Argentinian team - their national Under-20 side - were heavily penalised by referee Ben Crause in the closing stages, which allowed a poor SA U20 team to escape with a 20-20 draw after trailing 20-3 late in the game.
But putting aside the issue of possible bias by South African officials handling matches involving South African sides against overseas teams, the match was a hard-fought affair in which both sides could score only one try each, with the rest of the points registered by the kickers.
Their fourth victory from five matches sees WP move to the top of the South section with 17 points. The Pampas XV, meanwhile, remain in sixth position.
WP - who probably for the first time in their history were officially listed as the visiting team at Newlands - opened the scoring in the eighth minute with a penalty by flyhalf Conrad Hoffmann.
The Pampas team - who are based in Stellenbosch for the competition and who are playing their home games at Newlands - then kept WP scoreless for 30 minutes thanks to an obdurate defence and small but significant dominance at the set pieces.
WP however had the upper hand in the territory stakes and their pressure, particularly in the closing stages of the first half, eventually told when centre Johann Sadie scooted through after the Pampas backline, for once, missed a first-time tackle.
Hoffmann kicked the conversion from bang in front to open up a solid half-time lead given the heavy and rainy conditions, before adding another in the 43rd minute to make it 13-0.
The Pampas finally got onto the scoresheet in the 46th minute when captain Agustin Creevy picked up from a ruck and galloped straight through a huge gap in the WP defence to score under the posts.
Fullback Rodríguez added the extra points to reduce the gap to six, then kicked a penalty after 57 minutes to make it 13-10.
WP fullback Visser however slotted a long-range penalty on the hour mark to cancel out Rodríguez’s earlier penalty and set up a tense final quarter in which the result was always in the balance.
Rodríguez kicked a second penalty to close the gap but then missed another attempt with eight minutes remaining that would have levelled the scores.
The Pampas XV finished strongly, but were denied again when Creevy knocked on driving for the line in the 74th minute after sustained pressure in the WP 22-metre area.
Rodríguez then looked to have drawn the match when he kicked his third penalty with a minute remaining, only for the whistle of Legoete, and the boot of Visser, to decide otherwise.
WP led 10-0 at half-time.
The Pampas XV however will feel rightly aggrieved after a number of poor decisions by referee Pro Legoete and his assistants allowed WP to sneak home in a match that should have ended in a draw.
That’s how things seemed destined to finish when Pampas fullback Martin Rodriguez levelled the scores with a penalty on the stroke of fulltime, only for his side to be penalised for not rolling away from a ruck at the restart to allow WP No 15 Jurgens Visser to kick the winning points.
SA head of referees André Watson should perhaps look closely at the tape of this match, particularly the closing minutes, to decide whether the Argentinians were indeed the victims of calls that might have resulted in a different ending.
Earlier this month at Newlands, another Argentinian team - their national Under-20 side - were heavily penalised by referee Ben Crause in the closing stages, which allowed a poor SA U20 team to escape with a 20-20 draw after trailing 20-3 late in the game.
But putting aside the issue of possible bias by South African officials handling matches involving South African sides against overseas teams, the match was a hard-fought affair in which both sides could score only one try each, with the rest of the points registered by the kickers.
Their fourth victory from five matches sees WP move to the top of the South section with 17 points. The Pampas XV, meanwhile, remain in sixth position.
WP - who probably for the first time in their history were officially listed as the visiting team at Newlands - opened the scoring in the eighth minute with a penalty by flyhalf Conrad Hoffmann.
The Pampas team - who are based in Stellenbosch for the competition and who are playing their home games at Newlands - then kept WP scoreless for 30 minutes thanks to an obdurate defence and small but significant dominance at the set pieces.
WP however had the upper hand in the territory stakes and their pressure, particularly in the closing stages of the first half, eventually told when centre Johann Sadie scooted through after the Pampas backline, for once, missed a first-time tackle.
Hoffmann kicked the conversion from bang in front to open up a solid half-time lead given the heavy and rainy conditions, before adding another in the 43rd minute to make it 13-0.
The Pampas finally got onto the scoresheet in the 46th minute when captain Agustin Creevy picked up from a ruck and galloped straight through a huge gap in the WP defence to score under the posts.
Fullback Rodríguez added the extra points to reduce the gap to six, then kicked a penalty after 57 minutes to make it 13-10.
WP fullback Visser however slotted a long-range penalty on the hour mark to cancel out Rodríguez’s earlier penalty and set up a tense final quarter in which the result was always in the balance.
Rodríguez kicked a second penalty to close the gap but then missed another attempt with eight minutes remaining that would have levelled the scores.
The Pampas XV finished strongly, but were denied again when Creevy knocked on driving for the line in the 74th minute after sustained pressure in the WP 22-metre area.
Rodríguez then looked to have drawn the match when he kicked his third penalty with a minute remaining, only for the whistle of Legoete, and the boot of Visser, to decide otherwise.
Scorers:
WP:
Try: Johann Sadie
Conversion: Conrad Hoffmann
Penalties: Hoffmann (2), Jurgens Visser (2)
Pampas XV
Try: Agustin Creevy
Conversion: Martín Rodríguez
Penalties: Rodríguez (3)
