Griquas score dramatic home win

Griquas pulled off their second consecutive dramatic home win, when they beat the Lions 27-23 in their Currie Cup Round Five match in Kimberley on Saturday afternoon. But the boot of fly-half Conrad Barnard, who kicked a conversion, three penalties a sweetly struck drop-goal proved the difference.

Ultimately, it was that late drop-goal that sealed the win and saw Griquas continue their steady rise on the standings.

It's hunting season in South Africa at present and the big game hunters are in Kimberley. So far they have brought down two of the big five - the Sharks and now the Lions.

They have done it with little to spare and they have done it in thrilling fashion. Both of those victories have been thrillers. If you need to snooze when there is rugby in Kimberley set your alarm for the last ten minutes. The last six minutes of the Lions match were edge-of-the-seat stuff.

Till then it had not been much of a match and not much of a day either. When the legendary Griqua supporter led the side out he had a thick undershirt to his Griqua jersey and he ran out through dancing girls in tracksuits for a mean and nasty wind blew from the south over the fading grass of ABSA Park.

The Lions played with the wind but Griquas scored first. Going right in midfield Wayne Julies passed to Wylie Human who dropped the ball. Centre Lafras Uys snatched it up and soon offloaded to the faster Alshaun Bock ion the left wing and he sped over for a try. 5-0 after five minutes.

But the Lions looked to be getting control against the determined and well-organised Griquas - clearly a well coached and led side - till Julies found himself with two bulky props in front of him. He flicked a dummy and ran past Janné du Toit to score under the posts. Earl Rose converted. 7-6 to the Lions.

But when Human was penalised for holding on Barnard kicked a low, brilliant penalty over to regain the lead for his side, but then madness struck the home side.

The ball  was coming back to Griquas at a tackle/ruck in front of the Lions' posts but Willem Stoltz lying on the wrong side, kept playing the ball with arm and hand. He did so four times. Eventually the Griqua scrum-half got the ball and then stood up and jabbed a petulant boot onto Stoltz's back. What would have been a penalty to Griquas became a penalty to the Lions and Joubert was sent to the touch line to contemplate his sin. An earlier whistle may well have prevented the petulance.

While Joubert was thus locked in penitence, Earl Rose kicked two penalties to make the score 13-8 to the wind-assisted Lions.

Again Barnard drove the ball low and hard over the Lions' crossbar as the Lions yielded yet another penalty.  In the match the penalty count was 15-6 against them. Of the seven penalties against them in the first half, six were at the tackle and the sixth earned industrious hooker Ethienne Reynecke a yellow card. but during the time that they were down to 14 men the Lions scored seven points with a great try.

Uys charged into the Lions' 22 but the Lions won a turnover - one of several for it was a facet of play in which they beat the home side hands down.  No.8 Ernst Joubert made the initial running and then Wikus van Heerden and Rose carried it on. Rose flicked a brilliant pass to scrum-half Jano Vermaak who raced 55 metres to score at the posts. That made it 20-11 to the Lions at the break.

Griquas had the dying wind in the second half which was rather drab till those last six minutes. Barnard took delivery of the kicking tee twice from the little boy on the little motorbike and took the score to 20-17.

At this stage André Pretorius came onto the field - not that he did anything startling during the 20-odd minutes he was there though he did kick a straightforward penalty to make the score 23-17, the Lions' only score of the half.

Griquas did lots of earnest attacking. They had two five-metre line-pouts but the Lions coped with each with determined ease.

Vuyani Dlomo beat Grant Esterhuizen for a run down the right but the Lions bundled him into touch.  Then came a magic moment.

Hooker Tiaan Liebenberg threw into a line-out near the Griquas' 22. Griquas were doing well in the line-outs through Windpomp van Rooyen and Evan Botha. Liebenberg popped this ball in shallow to Botha who popped it back to Liebenberg. The bulky hooker sped down the right touch-line and played the ball infield. Suddenly Griquas were spinning it to their left and Herkie Kruger made a break . In the clutter he slipped the ball to fullback Zane Kirchner who came in sloe and at a clever angle to speed past the defence for a brilliant try not too far from the posts. 22-21, with the kick to come.

The kick came straight and true and Griquas led 23-22 with six minutes to play.

Was this another one-pointer as the victory over the Sharks had been?

From the kick-off Dewey Swartbooi, on for Julies, was penalised for knocking a player over who was jumping for the ball. It produced anger amongst the Griquas but the act looked really accidental and possibly even self-inflicted but Barnard belted the kick down into the Lions 22 on their left. Griquas won the line-out and mauled. Mauling stopped, they got the ball back to Barnard who was limping and the fly-half banged a soaring drop over. 27-23 with two minutes to play.

The Lions tried manfully to score. When the final siren wailed, they were going left and right in midfield but not forward anywhere near enough to suggest that a try was on.

There was rejoicing amongst the Griquas when the final whistle went.

The scorers:

For Griquas:
Tries: Bock, Kirchner
Con: Barnard
Pens: Barnard 3, Kruger
DG: Barnard

For the Lions:
Tries: Julies, Vermaak
Cons: Rose 2
Pens: Rose 2, Pretorius

Yellow cards: JP Joubert (Griquas, 19), Ethienne Reynecke (Lions, 37)

Teams:

Wildeklawer Griquas: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Vuyani Dlomo, 13 Lafras Uys, 12 Herkie Kruger, 11 Alshaun Bock, 10 Conrad Barnard, 9 JP Joubert, 8 Frans Viljoen, 7 Gareth Krause (captain), 6 Heinrich Stride, 5 Windpomp van Rooyen, 4 Evan Botha, 3 Hedley Wessels, 2 Willie Wepner, 1 Eugene van Staden.
Replacements: 16 Tiaan Liebenberg, 17 Cerneels Rautenbach, 18 Wayne van Heerden, 19 Cilliers Coetzer, 20 Tertius Carse, 21 Brendell Brandt, 22 Tiger Mangweni.

Lions: 15 Louis Ludik, 14 Wylie Human, 13 Jaco van Schalkwyk, 12 Wayne Julies, 11 Grant Esterhuizen, 10 Earl Rose, 9 Jano Vermaak, 8 Ernst Joubert, 7 Jean Deysel Jean, 6 Wikus van Heerden (captain), 5 Willem Stoltz, 4 Cobus Grobler, 3 Bertus Smit, 2 Ethienne Reynecke, 1 Heinke van der Merwe.
Replacements: 16 André van Niekerk, 17 Gert Muller, 18 Cobus Grobbelaar, 19 Roland Bernard, 20 Rory Kockott, 21 André Pretorius, 22 Dewey Swartbooi.

Referee: Marius Jonker (KwaZulu Natal)
Touch judges: Gareth Lloyd-Jones (Western Province), Louis Mzomba (Western Province)
Television match official: Shaun Veldsman (Boland)
Assessor: James Apollis