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Cheetahs rough up Rebels

Bloemfontein -  The Cheetahs secured their fourth Super Rugby win on the trot in their 41-21 romping of the Rebels in Bloemfontein on Saturday night.

The home side scored five tries to the visitors' three and sent a warning to their South African compatriots.

The Melbourne Rebels had signalled from the kick-off that they would not be pushovers in this Super Rugby clash.

The team from Bloemfontein suffered a setback early in the game when Wilhelm Steenkamp limped off the field with an injury.

Cheetahs inside centre Corne Uys scored his first of two tries after scrum half Sarel Pretorius attacked the blindside from the scrum.

Pretorius offloaded to Uys who trotted through for the opening try of the match.

The Cheetahs' potent backline had enough forward ball to dictate the attack thanks to the solid work by their forward pack.

In the absence of breakdown expert, Heinrich Brussow, the Cheetahs loose head prop Coenie Oosthuizen also played the role of loose forward in disguise.

While Oosthuizen completed his prop duties fittingly he also terrorised the Rebels at the breakdowns by stealing their ball in this area of the game.

Cheetahs speedster Ryno Benjamin scored his team’s second try after he charged down a Rebels kick then fielded the ball himself to sprint past a handful of defenders to score a brilliant individual try.

This gave the home team a 14 point lead over the Rebels with only a quarter of the game played.

The Cheetahs’ momentum was, however, hampered slightly when Rebels hooker Ged Robinson slipped through the middle of a lineout on the 22 metre line to spring through for his team’s first try.

The Free State team scored once again shortly before the halftime break with skipper Adriaan Strauss diving over for his team’s third try of the match.

The home side went through a brief lull on attack but kept the scoreboard ticking with the trusty boot of Sias Ebersohn.

Ebersohn has, in recent weeks, cemented himself as a bright young star and continued his fine kicking performance against the Rebels.

He scored 14 points by converting four of the five tries and adding two more penalty conversions.

The Cheetahs leaked another try with twenty minutes left in the match when Mark Gerrard crossed the try line.

Strauss added another five pointer to the scoreline to give the Cheetahs their bonus point try.

Seven minutes later, Uys scored the best try of the evening.

Benjamin passed the ball in mid air near the corner flag to Uys who himself spectacularly managed to score the try while the rest of his body was in the air.

The match turned scrappy towards the end with referee Pro Legoete awarding a yellow card to both Stirling Mortlock and Riaan Viljoen and a red card to Benjamin.

Legoete had the last say of the game when he awarded the Rebels a penalty try.

Scorers:

Cheetahs 41 - Tries: Corne Uys (2), Rayno Benjamin, Adriaan Strauss(2). Conversions: Sias Ebersohn(4), Naas Olivier. Penalties: Ebersohn (2).
Rebels 21 - Tries: Ged Robinson, Mark Gerrard, penalty try. Conversions: Richard Kingi (3).

Teams:

Cheetahs:
15 Riaan Viljoen, 14 Riaan Smit, 13 Robert Ebersohn, 12 Corne Uys, 11 Ryno Benjamin, 10 Sias Ebersohn, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Davon Raubenheimer, 7 Ashley Johnson, 6 Kabamba Floors, 5 Wilhelm Steenkamp, 4 Francois Uys, 3 WP Nel, 2 Adriaan Strauss (captain), 1 Coenie Oosthuizen

Substitutes: 16 Ryno Barnes, 17 Lourens Adriaanse, 18 Martin Muller, 19 Johan Wessels, 20 Tewis de Bruyn, 21 Naas Olivier, 22 Hennie Daniller

Rebels:
15 Richard Kingi, 14 Cooper Vuna, 13 Mark Gerrard, 12 Stirling Mortlock (captain), 11 Luke Rooney, 10 Julian Huxley, 9 Nick Phipps, 8 Tim Davidson, 7 Jarrod Saffy, 6 Luke Jones, 5 Hugh Pyle, 4 Alister Campbell, 3 Laurie Weeks, 2 Ged Robinson, 1 Greg Somerville

Substitutes: 17 Rodney Blake, 18 Kevin O’Neill, 19 Michael Lipman, 20 James Hilgendorf, 21 Afusipa Taumoepeau, 22 Peter Betham


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