UNAM’s record unbeaten run finally came to an end on Saturday when Wanderers beat them 37-34 at the Wanderers field.
In a thrilling match with end-to-end action, Wanderers took a 24-13 lead at half time and then stretched their lead to 37-20 midway through the second half. Unam made a determined comeback, scoring two tries in the final 10 minutes, but it wasn’t enough as Wanderers held on for a hard-fought victory.
Wanderers scored four tries through locks Dirk de Meyer and Stef Botha, right wing Rudie Pretorius and centre Stiaan van der Merwe.
Pretorius added two penalties and a conversion, while fly half Dirk von Wiedts added three conversions and one penalty.
Unam also scored four tries through props Tjino Tjirare and Hauta Veii, flanker Renaud van Neel and eighthman Bradley Klazen, while fullback Denver Murorua added two penalties and four conversions.
It was Unam’s first defeat after a record 37-match unbeaten run which stretched over three years and saw them winning the Rugby Premier League title for the past three years in a row.
Unam manager Werner Jeffrey was, however, not too perturbed about the result.
“We saw it coming, if you look at our game against United last week and now against Wanderers. It’s a streak that would have come to an end sooner or later and I think now is a good time that it came to an end,” he said.
“I’m very sad about my boys, but we fought till the end. Wanderers were in front by about 20 points, but we came back, and we just needed about another 10 minutes to beat them,” he added.
“But it’s very good for the league, because now we have competition. I think we went into a comfort zone, but now that we are out of it we know what we have to do, so from now on we will give it our all in each match,” he said.
Unam coach Johan Diergaardt was not at the match, with assistant coach Russel van Rooi taking over the coaching duties, but Jeffrey said it didn’t affect the outcome.
“I don’t think his absence affected the outcome, because we have capable guys who can do the job. He (Diergaardt) is a very big factor when it comes to the teams, but I think we handled it well. But today we didn’t have the depth on the bench and the guys from the bench didn’t make the impact that we wanted,” he said.
Wanderers coach Vince Dreyer congratulated Unam on their record run.
“Let’s first congratulate Unam on an unbelievable run – just a big congrats to their coaching staff and the team on what they have built up over the past couple of years,” he said.
“When you go on such winning streaks, the All Blacks have shown us and England have shown us, they always come to an end, and that’s what we told our guys – we told them Unam’s run will come to an end at some stage and we just need to be the team to do it. We are over the moon about this – it’s still a long season, but we’ve shown that we can beat them and that’s a big positive to take from this game,” he added.
Wanderers have been struggling with their goal kicking of late, but right wing Rudi Pretorius emerged as their goal kicking hero, also slotting a long range penalty from the halfway line, and Dreyer said that he had caught them all by surprise.
“The amazing thing is we didn’t even know that he could kick. He just nominated it when that kick came up from the halfway line and he slotted it so we just said well this is apparently our kicker that’s been hiding all the time. So we are happy and he’ll definitely be our kicker from now,” he said.
“We will just celebrate tonight but there is still a long way to go. This was just a small battle, the war is not over yet, so we will just take it game by game and try to improve.”
