Reds too strong for wounded Cheetahs
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The Reds gave the Cheetahs a 31-10 hiding in their Super 14 clash at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Friday evening.
The visitors from Australia led 11-10 at the break after flyhalf, Quade Cooper, slotted a penalty just before half-time. The Cheetahs had to play without their inspirational captain and flanker, Juan Smith. He withdrew from the team today due to personal reasons.
The Cheetahs struggled without him and made a lot of mistakes through the match. The Cheetahs already lost loose forwards Heinrich Brussow and Frans Viljoen due to injuries before the match.
Their depth at loose forwards was weakened to such an extent that their fitness coach, Neil du Plessis, had to sit on the bench for them. Du Plessis represented SA-u21, but gave up the game four years ago.
The man of the match was without a doubt the outside centre of the visitors, Digby Ioane, who danced his way through would-be-Cheetah-tacklers. He also made some telling tackles throughout the game. His angled running of flyhalf, Cooper, also made a huge difference. The outside centre was rewarded for his efforts when he scored a try with only a minute in the match remaining.
Cooper kept the Cheetah-defence guessing everytime he received the ball. The flyhalf however was handed a yellow card for utter stupidity by referee Vinny Munro in the first-half. Cooper tripped Cheetah-centre, Robert Ebersohn, after the ball was dead.
The home side scored their only try while Cooper did his time in the sin bin. Eightman, Ashley Johnson ran over the tryline from a scrum five metres out. Meyer Bosman, who captained the Cheetahs in absence of Smith, slotted a penalty from almost 50 metres out to open the scoring in the match.
Scorers:
Reds 31 (11) – Tries: Will Genia, Peter Hynes, Digby Ioane. Conversions: Quade Cooper 2. Penalties: Cooper 3, Genia. Cheetahs 10 (10) – Try: Ashley Johnson. Conversion: Naas Olivier. Penalty: Meyer Bosman. – Sapa
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