Worcester U13A take advantage of Wynberg's lacklustre first half

On Saturday morning all of Wynberg Boys Junior School's rugby playing boys made the bi-annual, long journey along the N1 north-bound and through the Hugenot tunnel to Worcester for this traditional rugby fixture.

Although the temperatures were on the cold side with strong winds and an ominous-looking cloud cover, the threat of rain never materialised into anything more than just that - a threat. 

With Worcester having provided most of the fireworks in terms of victorious results in the early games it was left up to Wynberg's 1st XV (U13A) to restore some pride for the school.

Unfortunately they proceeded to play the first half as if half asleep in allowing their opposition to take advantage of poor first-time tackling to score four unanswered tries.

Three of these tries were converted although it must be said that one of them should not have been given as a conversion since the ball passed over and to the right of the right-hand upright. This home-town decison set the tone of the match unfortunately and the proverbial horse had bolted by half-time with the score at 26-0 in favour of the hosts.

With many indiscretions by the home team being conveniently overlooked by the referee the game should have been a much closer affair. To their credit however, Wynberg came out firing in the second and won the half 17-5 by scoring three tries of their own.

The hunger and passion of the forwards and backs as they combined well to pressurise Worcester during long spells of the second half was the recipe for success that the visitors should have played with the entire match. Ferocity in defence and on attack saw Wynberg break down what had seemed an impenetrable defence in the first half to record three wonderful tries.

Final score 31-17 to Worcester.

The players can justifiably feel proud of their second-half performance but the question remains: Why can they not take the game to the opposition in the first half?

Wynberg's U13A side will be out to carry their impressive second-half perfomance against Worcester into their next game as they host Western Province Preparatory School this weekend.

Click here to see pictures of the match.