Hogs maul Rhinos to clinch league title

Calistus Kolantsho | Tuesday August 6, 2024 10:54

Hogs assistant coach, Vuyo Moyo, could not hold his excitement and stated that the outcome of the match was what he expected. “This is what we have been working on, the training that we have been doing. When we lost to Rhinos in the BRU Knock Out Cup, we had only been training for two weeks. The game was tough because it was a final but my boys came out on top. Our forwards and backline carried us, forwards did the hard work while the backline did the finishing,” he said. Moyo said he made some changes to bring in fresh legs and continued keeping the tempo high because they realised in the first half that their opponents could not keep up with the tempo, so they wanted to main the high tempo.

He added that they wanted to play running rugby and it worked for them. Meanwhile, Rhinos coach, Tshoganetso Katse, told SportMonitor that his players lost control of the match in the first half, and he was hopeful that they would change things in the second half as has always been the case whereby they won matches coming from behind. “We failed to utilise our chances, as you have seen. Hogs have big forwards who dominated our players. They went wide, that is where they punished us, and players could only keep up for a few minutes, then collapse. Despite the loss, this is a positive thing for a project that we started four years ago. We thought this is our year especially after we beat Hogs during the Knock Out Cup, something that has never happened before,” Katse said.

He said Rhinos is now shifting focus to the 7s tournament that they are hosting in October. Hogs were the first to draw blood in the 13th minute through James Vambe who gave his side the lead at the beginning of the first half. Hogs pressed their opponents to put another mark on the score sheet to take a 12-0 lead. A few minutes later, Rhinos were awarded a penalty a few meters from target, and fly half, Banjo Kesianye comfortably scored. Good build up from the middle of the park by Hogs players with quick hands saw Hogs extend the lead to 19-3 after Munashe Kamunda scored a try. Godknows Majara then scored a conversion.

Hogs continued marauding Rhinos with Owen Uaja going on attack along the line to score a try in the 23rd minute to increase the lead to 26-3. Rhinos were able to snatch a try to end the half with Hogs leading 26-8. The two sides made some changes and brought in fresh legs in the second half. Rhinos seemed to struggle to chase after losing the ball, and getting up was also a struggle. Hogs scoring did not stop as they went on to end the match and winning the title with convincing score of 38-15.

Hogs 38 Rhinos 15