United defeat Western Suburbs

UNITED beat Western Suburbs 44-20 to keep their hopes of finishing in the top four on the log alive at Suburbs Park on Saturday.

Suburbs were the first ones to score when left wing Sergio de la Harpe scored a very quick try in the first two minutes of the match. Centre Charlton Brussel failed to convert and the score remained at 5-0 to the home team. Seven minutes later United found their footing in the match when they got the ball past the Suburbs defence to score a try through Winmar Rust who was playing on the flank. Rust converted the try to put United 7-5 in the lead.
United were awarded two penalties minutes apart but Rust could only make one of them count to put them 10-5 ahead after 15 minutes. Jaco Swanepoel added to the score when he managed to barge over the line from a maul, and with Rust once again converting, United stretched their lead to 17-5.
A few minutes later Suburbs were awarded a penalty, which was converted by Brussel. United replied to this by scoring two tries in succession through Christian van Niekerk and Phillip Nashikaku. Both tries were converted by Rust taking the halftime score to 31-8. Suburbs came back in the second half with renewed vigour and they scored two tries through McGrath van Wyk in the 45th minute and Lloyd Busch in the 60th minute. Brussel only managed to convert the second try to reduce the deficit to 31-20.
Sixty nine minutes into the match, Rust scored his second try on the day and followed this up with a penalty kick seven minutes later to bring the score to 39-20. In the dying minutes of the match David Philander scored a try after Desmond Haihambo knocked the ball on in Suburbs f 22. Rust failed to convert and the match ended at 44-20. Danie Vermeulen, the coach of United, was very pleased with the way his team played.
‘We took control after they scored in the early minutes of the match and then managed to play well for the rest of the first half,’ Vermeulen said.
‘They tried to come back early on in the second half but we managed to hold it together and then scored and that kept them on the back foot for the rest of the game,’ he added.
The win puts United in fifth position on the log and Suburbs drop to sixth place from fourth place.
‘This year the race to the top four is wide open, and no team at this stage can say that they will make it to the semi final. We are just taking it one game at a time and we will see where we end up,’ Vermeulen said on his team fs chances of getting to the playoffs.
In another match former log leaders Mariental beat Unam 34-17 to go up to second place on the log from third. Unam on the other hand, remain at the bottom of the log.
‘We had a very good match, but the wind was very strong and that meant that our kicking game was non-existent otherwise we would have scored more,’ said the coach of Mariental, Gert van Wyk.
‘We hope that we will continue to win and end in the top four so that we qualify for the semi finals at the end of the season,’ Van Wyk continued.