Shimlas pull a little shimmy on Ikeys

Details

Published on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:13

Written by Vafa Naraghi

The Ikey Tigers kicked off their title defence in the Varsity Cup season opener on Saturday, February 4th. Playing against Shimlas (the University of Free State team), the Ikeys fumbled their way to a 38-10 defeat.

With the Green Mile decked out in freshers dressed in blue and white, the atmosphere before kick-off was quite vibrant as students waited for the first home game of the year to begin.New Ikeys no. 10 Nick Holden kicked the game off with a deep ball into the Shimlas’ 22, and while the home team seemed to have things under control for the first two minutes, the boys from Bloem managed to take control and score and convert two tries in the space of five minutes.

The Ikeys found themselves trailing 16–0 with 72 minutes of rugby still left to play. Ikeys fullback Dillyn Leyds managed to pull one back in the 11th minute after the ball was spread wide from a scrum five metres from the try line, but Nick Holden missed the conversion. Shimlas took an 18–5 lead into the break after Nico Scheepers slotted one in through the sticks.

The start of the second half saw the Ikeys go over the line for a try but a controversial TMO decision saw the score remain the same.Replacement Shimlas scrumhalf Pieter Rademan broke through the Ikeys line of defence with some superb vision to score a try in the 56th minute, with Scheepers converting. The next few minutes saw Scheepers slot in two more penalties to extend the lead to 30–5.

The rock solid Shimlas’ defence, was breached in the 74th minute, when new Ikeys’ skipper Ntsolo Setlaba went over the line to score a try underneath the sticks. Holden’s rushed drop-goal conversion from right in front of the poles hit the upright, characteristic of his rather insipid kicking performance on the night.

Shimlas no. 8 Fanie van der Walt scored another try to earn a bonus point late in the game,  but the crowds barely witnessed it as they were streaming out, irked by the eventual 38–10 loss. 

While the Ikeys had their fair share of chances throughout the game, school-boy handling errors cost them in the final third. Their game was further marred by needless knock-ons in their half under little pressure from the opposition.

Shimlas dominated most of the set pieces barring a string of scrums in the first half where Shimlas were made to do with seven men after their lock, Joubert Horn, was controversially yellow-carded. They deserved their first ever victory over the Ikeys in Cape Town as they showed character and discipline in defence. The Ikeys, quite frankly, didn’t pitch on the evening.

With one walker-by labelling the game as the “worst Ikey(s) performance he has seen in his four years at UCT,” perhaps this is the wake-up call UCT needs from Varsity-Cup-la-la-land. There is an argument that the team is relatively new and needs time to gel, but, on the other hand, there are a fair amount of senior lads in the team who have been in the system for a while. However, UCT  still bleeds blue and white.

Once an Ikey, always a Tiger.