The University of Johannesburg lifted their first Varsity 7s title as they saw off the University of the Free State 32-5 while Maties finished third and UP-Tuks emerged victorious in the Plate final at the 2017 Varsity 7s tournament in Durban.
Position 7/8
Madibaz 29-5 UCT
The Madibaz hit first with an unconverted try courtesy of Michael Botha while Liam Blake-Taylor was denied a try before eventually dotting down.
Botha crossed for the Madibaz third try on the stroke of half-time as they went into the break with a 15-0 lead. The second half was littered with unforced errors by both teams but the Madibaz eventually straightened their house to score a converted try through Simon Bolze for a 22-0 lead.
UCT pulled back a try but the Madibaz struck again to win 29-5 and finish 7th place overall.
Plate Final
UP-Tuks v UWC
Both teams tried to assert early dominance in the early exchanges of the Plate final with the majority of play taking place between the respective 22 metre lines.
Rohaan Adams kept his try scoring form intact as he touched down for a converted try despite immense pressure by UP-Tuks. Stephan Enslin cut the deficit to two points as he touched down for UP-Tuks before UWC’s Verno Treu was denied a try by the assistant referee.
UWC lost the services of Ruan Mostert to a yellow card which allowed WJ Strydom the opportunity to snatch the lead for UP-Tuks. UP-Tuks weathered the storm in the final minutes of the match to claim the Plate final with a 10-7 win over UWC.
3rd Place Playoff
NWU 19-24 Maties
NWU made life difficult for the Maties as they constantly denied them any attacking momentum but the Maroon Machine soon settled and struck through James Murphy.
Romario Abrahams made good use of the Power Play to score a 10-point try as Maties added to their lead. NWU struck back through Lungelo Gosa with Maties taking a 17-5 lead into half-time.
The men from Stellenbosch continued their rampant form as Mornè Taljaard gathered a loose ball to score his team’s third try. NWU got another try to keep themselves in the match and Diederik Oberholzer crossed for their third try but still fell short as Maties won 24-19 to finish third overall.
Cup Final
UJ 32-5 Kovsies
Kovsies hit the road running in the Cup final as they made huge inroads into UJ’s territory and they were rewarded with an unconverted try to Armand Pretorius off the back of a strong scrum.
Marco Mason was shown a yellow card for a high tackle and the one-man advantage allowed Ronald Brown to make the break and offload to Edwin Jansen who scored for UJ. The teams could not score again in the first half and went into half-time with the score tied up at 5-5.
UJ’s talisman Ronald Brown burnt up the field as he raced in for yet another try as UJ snuck ahead 10-5 with four minutes left on the clock.
A great decision by UJ to use their Power Play paid dividends as Martin van Wyk crossed the whitewash and Ricardo Duarttee scored in the second Power Play to hand the University of Johannesburg the Cup with a 32-5 win over the University of the Free State.
By Dan Lombard
