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Cape Town - Wits were bursting with confidence in their first home game of the 2016 Varsity Shield presented by Steinhoff International season, as they lead throughout the game to bury TUT by 53 points.
A rainy Wits Rugby Stadium in Braamfontein was the venue for the round two clash between Wits and TUT on Monday.
Wits kicked off in similar fashion to last week’s encounter against UKZN in Pietermaritzburg as Thato Marubela once again opened the scoring to put Wits up by five points. Warren Gilbert’s missed conversion would turn out to have little impact on the final score. Wits continued the momentum through a surge of relentless attacks that ultimately could not be converted into points.
A rain delay after 20 minutes of play threatened to halt Wits’ momentum, but when the game resumed 10 minutes later, Wits captain, Connor Brockschmidt, quickly made it 10-0 thanks to a deserving try. Warren Gilbert was successful with the boot this time round and gifted his side with a 13 point lead over TUT.
TUT had no reply to the Wits onslaught, with Constant Beckerling, scoring his side’s third try of the evening. Gilbert’s second conversion of the evening took his side to a 21 point lead. A TUT counter-attack at the end of the half only showcased Wits’ impressive defense as the score remained 21-0 to Wits at half time.
Wits struck immediately after the break with Ruan MacDonald diving over to make it 26-0. The second half turned out to be even more one-sided than the first, as Wits grabbed another two tries through MacDonald. To rub salt in the TUT’s wound, AJ van Blerk converted a penalty try to conclude a powerful display by Wits.
“It was a tough game - very physical. It was sloppy in the beginning because of the weather and the TUT boys came hard but we stuck together. We knew what we had to do and we did it,” said Constant Beckerling.
Scorers:
Wits
Tries: Thato Narubela, Connor Brocschmidt, Constant Beckerling, Ruan MacDonald (3)
Cons: Warren Gilbert
Pens: AJ van Blerk
Teams
Wits: 15, AJ van Blerk, 14 Kwanele Ngema, 13 Joshua Jarvis, 12, Wade Worthington, 11 Thato Marubela, 10 Warren Gilbert, 9 Ruan Cloete, 8 Constant Beckerling, 7 Connor Brockschmidt, 6 Ruan MacDonald, 5 Rhyno Herbst, 4 Graham Logan, 3 Luvuyo Pupuma, 2CJ Conradie, 1 Tidje Visser
Replacements:
16 Craig Hume, 17 Ameer Williams, 18 Mitchell Fraiser, 19 Ayabulela Mdudi, 20 Luxolo Ntsepe, 21 Kyle Wesemann, 22 Sicelo Champion, Brandon Palmer
TUT: 15 Lisa banzi, 14 Tshepo Nyathi, 13 Ian Truter, 12 Dumisani Mthethwa, 11 Chestwin Gaffley, 10 Lukas Van Zyl, 9 Shaun Jaards, 8 Claude Johannes, 7 George Letshuma, 6 Francois De Villiers, 5 William Thompson, 4 Armand Marshall, 3 Jonty Voogt, 2 Christo Lategan, 1 Stanley Modjadji
Replacements:
16 Wessel Jordaan, 17 Jurie Huyser, 18 Calvin Maduna, 19 Dehan Groenewald, 20 Litha Vumisa, 21 Frankie Abrahams, 22 Arno Brits, 23 Kevin Nkateko
