Cheetahs earn bonus point against desperately poor Pumas

In a country where electricity is such a scarce commodity, it was a waste of the nation’s resources to have the lights on at the Mbombela Stadium on Saturday night.

In fact for long periods of a Currie Cup match featuring two teams who started the penultimate round of matches in the top four on the log, the Cheetahs and Pumas may have been playing in the dark, such was the paucity of quality on display.

The Cheetahs won 29-14 but the real losers were the poor folk who paid to watch. 

Describing it as a ‘scrappy affair’ would be a compliment.

The scrums were a mess, with penalty following penalty at that set-piece, while passes went laughably astray and basic handling was non-existent. 

Whatever brief moments of structure to emerge came mainly through driving mauls off of line-outs, with three of the first four tries in the opening half, coming via that unimaginative method. 

Two of those went to the Cheetahs, while their third, came via slick interpassing between

scrumhalf Rewan Kruger and hook Marnus van der Merwe, who took advantage of a dozy Pumas defence. The Cheetahs took a 19-7 lead into the half-time break. 

Try as they might, the Pumas simply couldn’t string 60 seconds of quality together.

One moment in the second half summed up the desperate state of their play.

Having earned a couple of  penalties near the Cheetahs tryline, they gave up on trying to maul off a lineout and instead went for a tap penalty but the initial pass was immediately dropped. 

In one sense the Cheetahs deserve some credit for their defence, especially at the start of the second half, although on the flip side, it was mostly a case of muscling up against what was very unimaginative attacking play from the Pumas.  

Having withstood pressure from the Pumas, in the opening 20 minutes of the second half, when the Cheetahs did manage to break out, Ruan Pienaar slotted a penalty to stretch their lead to 15 points. 

While their technical ability and tactics were lacking, there was no questioning the Pumas’ endeavour. They kept coming at the Cheetahs, even as their handling remained poor and their overall play was one dimensional. 

They earned a penalty try in the 67th minute when Cheetahs wing Cohen Yasper handled the ball on the ground when put under pressure on his own tryline. He was subsequently yellow-carded, but even with the on man advantage the Pumas were still unable to put points on the board. A late try from substitute George Cronje - another from a lineout maul - earned the visitors a bonus point.

The result ensured the Cheetahs locked up a home semifinal, while the Pumas will go into the final round of matches, knowing that they will need to beat Griquas in Kimberley on Friday to secure their spot in the playoffs.

SCORERS

Pumas: Tries - Corne Fourie, Penalty Try. Conversions - Tinus De Beer (2)

Cheetahs: Tries - Gideon Van der Merwe, Rewan Kruger, Marnus van der Merwe, George Cronje. Conversions - Ruan Pienaar (3). Penalty - Pienaar