Western Province on Tuesday won the SARU Under-18 Sevens competition at Ho\u00ebrskool Monument in Krugersdorp by defeating SWD 31-24 in a thrilling final to cap off an exciting tournament.<\/p>\n
Boland won the Plate Final, KwaZulu-Natal the Bowl final and Griquas the Shield final, while the Leopards defeated the Limpopo Blue Bulls to finish the competition in third position.<\/p>\n
Western Province recovered from a 26-19 defeat against Free State in their opening match on Monday and worked their way into the final thanks to their impressive attack and tenacious defence.<\/p>\n
The team started the final day\u2019s play with an encouraging 32-21 victory against the Blue Bulls in the Cup quarterfinal and then toppled the Limpopo Blue Bulls 29-24 in the semifinal to advance to the final.<\/p>\n
SWD, meanwhile, defeated Boland and the Leopards in the Cup quarterfinal and semifinal respectively to book their final berth.<\/p>\n
The final was entertaining as Western Province did well to take advantage of the gaps in SWD\u2019s defence thanks to their fantastic support play and raw speed, which they backed up with a solid defensive effort. This earned them four first-half tries to only one by SWD for a 24-7 lead. The second half was tense as the Cape side scored another try, but conceded two shortly after as they were reduced to 14 men for two minutes. But they managed to shut out SWD in the dying minutes to secure the victory.<\/p>\n
The semifinal between Western Province and the Limpopo Blue Bulls was also thrilling as the Limpopo side staged a dramatic comeback with two tries in the dying minutes to level the scores at 24-24 at the end of regular time. This forced the match into a sudden-death playoff, and after a few tight exchanges Western Province secured the victory with a stunning try out wide.<\/p>\n
SWD, meanwhile, cruised to a 39-0 victory against the Leopards in a one-sided semifinal.<\/p>\n
Injured Springbok Sevens captain Kyle Brown, who mingled with the players and gave the teams advice during the two-day tournament, congratulated Western Province on their victory and praised the participating teams for the high quality of rugby delivered. Such was the thrilling nature of the tournament a total of 152 tries were scored on the A field on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell done to Western Province, they played a fantastic brand of rugby throughout the competition and they certainly deserved the victory,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n
Of the tournament, he said: \u201cI was very impressed with the standard of rugby played by the teams and I believe this tournament will play a vital role in boosting the interest in the sport at school level in future.\u201d<\/p>\n
SARU Under-18 Sevens day-two results:<\/strong><\/p>\n Bowl quarterfinals:<\/strong><\/p>\n KwaZulu-Natal 33 \u2013 12 Eastern Province Cup quarterfinals:<\/strong><\/p>\n Valke 10 – 12 Leopards Shield Semifinals:<\/strong><\/p>\n Eastern Province 0 \u2013 12 Border Bowl Semifinals:<\/strong><\/p>\n KwaZulu-Natal 17 \u2013 12 Namibia Plate Semifinals:<\/strong><\/p>\n Valke 7 \u2013 22 Boland Cup Semifinals:<\/strong><\/p>\n Leopards 0 \u2013 39 SWD Shield Final:<\/strong><\/p>\n Border 7 – 40 Griquas<\/p>\n Plate 3rd\/4th place playoff:<\/strong><\/p>\n Valke 24 – 19 Pumas<\/p>\n Bowl final:<\/strong><\/p>\n KwaZulu-Natal 26 – 21 Free State<\/p>\n Plate Final:<\/strong><\/p>\n Boland 52 – 12 Blue Bulls<\/p>\n Cup 3rd\/4th place playoff:<\/strong><\/p>\n Leopards 31 – 14 Limpopo Blue Bulls<\/p>\n Cup Final:<\/strong><\/p>\n SWD 24 – 31 WP<\/p>\n Issued by SARU Corporate Affairs<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Western Province on Tuesday won the SARU Under-18 Sevens competition at Ho\u00ebrskool Monument in Krugersdorp by defeating SWD 31-24 in a thrilling final to cap off an exciting tournament. Boland won the Plate Final, KwaZulu-Natal the Bowl final and Griquas the Shield final, while the Leopards defeated the Limpopo Blue Bulls to finish the competition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Namibia 28 – 22 Border
Free State 45 – 17 Griffons
Golden Lions 34 \u2013 27 Griquas<\/p>\n
SWD 17 – 12 Boland
WP 32-21 Blue Bulls
Pumas 12 – 45 Limpopo Blue Bulls<\/p>\n
Griffons 19 \u2013 54 Griquas<\/p>\n
Free State 34 \u2013 12 Golden Lions<\/p>\n
Blue Bulls 31 \u2013 19 Pumas<\/p>\n
WP 29 \u2013 24 Limpopo Blue Bulls<\/p>\n