Cornal Hendricks. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images)
Saturday’s Morne Steyn Loftus farewell
turned into the Siya Masuku show instead.
Steyn might not have had the dream home
send-off the Springbok flyhalf deserved but his Blue Bulls did enough to make
the Currie Cup semi-finals despite a 31-27 defeat to the Free State Cheetahs.
The Bulls scored four tries and lost by a
margin of less than seven points to grab two bonus points from the contest.
RECAP | Cheetahs 31-27 Bulls
It meant Jake White’s men finished on 38
log points, which were out of reach for Western Province, who were on 32 before
their clash with their Sharks in Cape Town on Saturday.
With the win, the Cheetahs gave themselves
a good shot at topping the overall log, pending the outcome at Cape Town Stadium.
The Bulls got on the board as early as the
fifth minute when wing Cornal Hendricks touched down in the right side corner
after good hands from Marcell Coetzee and Stedman Gans in the lead up.
Two minutes later, centre Harold Vorster went
over for the Bulls’ second score after sloppy Cheetahs passing allowed David
Kriel to pounce on the loose ball and feed his centre to over untroubled.
Barely five minutes passed and then a third
Bulls try registered when scrumhalf Embrose Papier outpaced the Cheetahs
defence to score under the sticks. Things were going swimmingly for the hosts,
who didn’t see any danger signs ahead.
The Cheetahs finally let it be known that
they arrived in Pretoria after 18 minutes when No 13 David Brits used his upper
body strength to corkscrew through two tacklers and score their first try.
The visitors came close through their
forwards after a neat lineout move that took hooker Marnus van der Merwe to
within a blade of grass from dotting down but failed to cross the white line.
But the Cheetahs got reward for their industry
and probing when they ran a lovely backline move during which fullback Tapiwa
Mafura sliced the Bulls backline in half before feeding wing Daniel Kasende to
score.
Problems mounted for the Bulls when Elrigh
Louw was red-carded for a shoulder barge on Siba Qoma head in an illegal
cleanout at the ruck with less than three minutes before the break.
The Bulls held on for a 19-14 half-time
lead but could have been further in front had flyhalf Morne Steyn not left his
kicking boots in his tog bad.
Steyn returned from the locker room with his
kicking boots on as he slotted the Bulls’ first points of the second half to give
them a handy eight-point advantage.
But Cheetahs pivot Masuku, in a move
reminiscent of what Kennedy Tsimba used to do in orange, scored a brilliant
solo try just seconds from the restart.
From there, the Cheetahs went relentlessly
in pursuit of the lead for the first time in the game and succeeded when
scrumhalf Rewan Kruger scored, adding pressure on the Bulls, who needed at least
a point to be in a semi-final log position.
But after the hour, the Bulls struck back
when Hendricks dotted down again when a kind bounce from a Chris Smith
cross-kick allowed the Springbok to score.
The match was finely poised going into the
final stretch with the numbers even after the Cheetahs lost replacement George
Cronje to the sin bin and a one-point advantage to the visitors at 28-27.
Masuku scored a penalty to add to his try
and four conversions as the Cheetahs deployed dogged defence to hold onto the 31-27
win.
Scorers
Blue Bulls (19) 27
Tries: Cornal Hendricks (2), Harold Vorster,
Embrose Papier
Conversions: Morne Steyn (2)
Penalty: Steyn
Red card: Elrigh Louw
Free State Cheetahs (14) 31
Tries: David Brits, Daniel Kasende, Siya
Masuku, Rewan Kruger
Conversions: Siya Masuku (4)
Penalty: Masuku