Lions claim first win
30 Jun 2010
The Golden Lions bounced back from their disappointing opening day loss to beat the Blue Bulls 23-20 in their second outing on Wednesday.
And they did it despite playing with 14 men for just about half of the game, having had three yellow cards awarded against them. Lions loose forwards Tiaan McDonald and Ruan Steenkamp, and lock Ruan Venter can take much of the credit for their first win of the week, after the Lions went down to Western Province on Monday.
The trio created a number of turnovers and were solid in defence, particularly while their side was one man down. Others to shine up front were prop Gideon Muller, and replacement lock Fabian Booysen.
Booysen came on after just 20 minutes when giant second-rower Paul Willemse was stretchered off with what looked like a serious knee injury. Lions captain and flyhalf Marais Schmidt regained his place kicking form and his tactical kicking was also sound. Centre Jaco Viljoen and wing Chad de Klerk put in some dangerous runs.
For the Bulls lock Schalk van Heerden got through a lot of work and hooker Timothy Nhlapo showed up well, but on the whole the forwards were disappointing and never created enough chances for their backs.
The Bulls were first on the board via a try by scrumhalf Poerie van Rooyen, converted by flyhalf Tony Jantjies. The Lions replied through a try by prop Muller, converted by Schmidt before Jantjies slotted the first drop goal of the week and added a penalty to put his side ahead.
Booysen crossed over just before half time for a try converted by Schmidt to put the Lions 17-13 up at the break. Schmidt added two second half penalties to make it 23-13 and he then proceeded to strangle the Bulls out of the game with some judicious kicking.
Nhlapo scored a try for the Bulls in injury time to give the score some respectability.
By Gauteng correspondent
14 Comments
30 Jun 2010, 15:11 pm
Die Bull Dragons is op form!
30 Jun 2010, 15:21 pm
@Staal(Staal)-1: goeie vorm ou maat
2 played 2 losses for the bullietjies
30 Jun 2010, 15:56 pm
Shows what players they develop.
30 Jun 2010, 15:57 pm
@Kea-Cat(KEA)-3: Sorry, Shows who’s players they develop.
30 Jun 2010, 16:30 pm
The Bulls should count themselves lucky they don’t have to play WP. Just thumped the EP team that beat them two days ago.
30 Jun 2010, 16:33 pm
Bulls gonna get sweeped at Craven Week?…
Gotta love that!
30 Jun 2010, 17:04 pm
A gem from Dan Nicholl I have to post here:
“Watching Craven Week; see why junior rugby’s struggling. Make your provincial team, get sent to Welkom for an entire week.”
30 Jun 2010, 17:25 pm
I wonder what the problem is with Pretoria schools rugby.
Surely they have a bigger pool of players from, let’s call it the “traditional” rugby demographic group, than say Bloemfontein or the Eastern Cape.
And yet Free State consistently outperform them at junior level. And this year even EP is doing so.
Furthermore, Pretoria has only 1 school that is consistently in the top 10 and even that school is hovering around 5th spot at the moment, if I recall correctly.
It’s not lack of player numbers in the corrct demographic group, so what is it?
30 Jun 2010, 17:35 pm
I have never understood agonising over schoolboy rugby. All that is needed is 5 players from the Bulls craven week team this year end up at the Bulls acadmey, with 5 from other regions. Out of these 10, maybe 5 will play Vodacom cup, 3 Currie Cup and perhaps 2 Super 14. That is all that is needed.
Besides, in school boy rugby, you sometimes get good years and bad years – it is the nature of the beast. The players are so rough round the edges, and have so much developing to do, that it is tough to say which players will be turn into good players.
There have been plenty of talented school boy players who have amounted to nothing and plenty of school boy players who showed limited talent who have gone on to be great players.
30 Jun 2010, 17:39 pm
@Tacitus(Tacitus)-8: we all know what it is…quotas
30 Jun 2010, 17:51 pm
@WOLFMAN21(WOLFMAN21)-9:
Let’s look at the current Bulls S14 Champion team as an example. I don’t know where they all came from, and over how many years they were spread, but the ones I know should give us a fair indication:
Kirchner – Craven week in what year and for which team? Eagles? 2002?
vd Heever – Bulls. 2006/7?
Hougaard – WP. 2006/7?
Pretorius – ?
Olivier – Bulls. 2001/2?
Steyn – Free state, but did he make the Craven week team?
du Preez – Bulls. 2000/2001?
Spies – Bulls. 2003?
Stegman – Free state. 2003?
Potgieter – EP. 2004?
Matfield – Limpopo. 1997?
Bakkies – Sharks?.1998?
Kruger – Bulls?.2003?
Gary Botha – Don’t know?
Gurthro. – Free State?
The point is, the team contains players from so many different years and provinces that any given year probably doesn’t really matter. If you just have 2 star players per year on average, with the odd golden year delivering 4 or so star players, you should be fine.
It is how professionally you manage your structures beyond U19 level.
But I still wonder why the Bulls region cannot produce consistently strong Craven week teams.
It is an interesting question to ponder.
30 Jun 2010, 18:37 pm
@Tacitus(Tacitus)-11: It is an interesting question to ponder – I don’t know much about school rugby in Pretoria and the Bulls’ region.
It should also be asked, why can’t the WP region produce consistently strong Craven week teams? They always have to take players from schools in the Boland – Paul Roos, and the two Paarl Schools.
Gurthro went to Paarl Boys High and played WP Craven week in 1998 and 1999; Bakkies – Pumas 1997; Potgieter – EP 2005; Steyn – Free State 2001; Pretorius – Sharks 1997.
1 Jul 2010, 00:15 am
does anybody else here think it is just coincidence that now that Eric Sauls is coaching the forwards at teh Bulls at age group levels at ethBulls, they are starting to lose? FFS get rid of that plague man!! He is clearly not a coaches arse!! He has stuffed up U20 rugby for teh last 3 years, and now is doing the same to the Bulls.
The bulsl must wake up. Only the BEST quality coaches are required for forwards payers that are in their formative (rugby) years. Not quota coaches.
1 Jul 2010, 09:15 am
What happened did the Bulls send the u9 team?
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