Westville Griffins soar over Glenwood’s Green Machine in narrow home victory
|Published
Durban — Westville Boys High School’s Griffins soared past Glenwood’s Green Machine and delighted their home crowd following a recent inter-schools fixture.
The hosts concluded a good day with a closely contested 35-32 victory in the First XV rugby game.
WBHS first team coach Njabulo Zulu said that despite the victory, he wasn’t pleased with the outcome.
“I am not happy with how hard we made this game and the unnecessary stress as we led 20-3 at halftime. My message was that we had given away nine penalties in the half.
“If we can be consistent, the score can run away. In the second half, we didn’t learn our lessons as we continued to give away penalties. We also forced things and we didn’t defend well, which allowed Glenwood to come back into the game.”
Zulu said he didn’t feel his side adjusted to the referee and concluded they could’ve really hurt the visitors, and be comfortable instead of winning by a narrow margin.
WBHS First XV captain Chris Cloete praised his side’s good start to the game and said that was key to their victory.
“I believe we played in the right areas and we managed to execute our game plan like we said we would. Later in the game, discipline became our biggest enemy.
“We gave away too many penalties and that put us in a really uncomfortable position towards the end. I’m grateful that we got the win but we will definitely work on our discipline going forward,” he said.
Glenwood director of Rugby Derek Heiberg praised his side’s fighting spirit after trailing early and also for nearly stealing the victory despite injury concerns.
“We entered this game with a few injuries and to lose two of our forwards in the first 15 minutes didn’t help. It was a very loud atmosphere and most of the team (in grade 11) haven’t experienced that before, and that left them shellshocked.”
He said both sides had the same number of entries – four – inside the opponent’s 22. The difference was that WBHS were more clinical and it resulted in them scoring 20 points.
“In the second half, we completely dominated the game as we had 13 entries in the opponent’s 22 versus three; and we eventually outscored them in terms of tries, but their kicker was accurate.
“We made mistakes, which the boys will learn from. To score 29 points in the second half is a big achievement for this young squad and makes me very happy.”
Heiberg thanked WBHS for their hospitality and said that it’s always challenging playing there, but he enjoyed the day.
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