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Vodacom Cup wrap-up – Round Two

PUBLISHED: March 17, 2013


Only two teams retain 100% records after the opening two rounds of the Vodacom Cup, while a further three can boast of being unbeaten as the tournament has made a fascinating kick-off to 2013.

Sitting pretty at the top of the respective sections are the Steval Pumas, who edged the Vodacom Blue Bulls in a thriller for their second successive victory, while The Sharks XV were also on the road to edge out DHL Western Province in a similarly tense affair.

The EP Kings, Regent Boland Cavaliers and Standard Bank Pampas XV also had second round wins – to add to opening day draws – to preserve their unbeaten records.

At the other end of the logs are the SWD Eagles, Border Bulldogs, the Limpopo Blue Bulls and the defending champs, DHL WP.

The Sharks XV and DHL Western Province teams were on the receiving end of countless penalties and a red and yellow card. Province finished the game with 12 players on the park (as they also suffered some big injuries) and the Sharks with 14 as the latter edged to a 24-23 victory.

Veteran fullback Riaan Viljoen – a Springbok tourist – scored the winning try for the visitors, with his flyhalf Fred Zeilinga keeping a cool head to convert in the dying seconds of the game to give his side the one-point win.

It took a similarly last-gasp penalty from the Steval Pumas to edge past the Vodacom Blue Bulls 44-42 on the Loftus Versfeld B-field in Pretoria on Saturday.

The Pumas had seemingly been in control of the match as they stretched their lead to 41-23 with 13 minutes left to play.

But two tries for the Blue Bulls, through replacement forward Roelof Smit and left-wing Sampie Mastriet, narrowed the gap to 41-37 with seven minutes left to play and the hosts finally looked to have sealed a magnificent fightback when right-wing Travis Ismaiel nipped over for an unconverted try with one minute left to play. However, flyhalf Tony Jantjies crucially missed with his conversion attempt.

The Blue Bulls held a 42-41 lead but with the hooter having already sounded Pumas replacement flyhalf Carl Bezuidenhout stepped up to slot the winning penalty to seal the nailbiting win.

It was another tough day at the office for the Assupol Limpopo Blue Bulls who conceded the most points and biggest defeat in the 15-year history of the competition. The 113 points and 110-point win by the Leopards surpassed the 110-17 beating the Weltwitschias suffered at the hands of EP in 2001.

The 17 tries scored by the Leopards was also a new competition record with hat-tricks from Ian Heyns (four tries) and Rhyk Welgemoed, while former Springbok flyhalf Andre Pretorius kicked a record 14 conversions.