The Southern Kings silenced the Loftus faithful on Saturday when they beat the three time Super Rugby champions, the Bulls, with a penalty kick on full-time to a clinch a memorable 31 – 30 win in Pretoria.
The visitors traveled to Loftus after they recorded a historic one point win against the Jaguares in Buenos Aires a week earlier.
Bulls’ Tian Schoeman leveled the scores after Kings’ Lionel Cronje kicked an earlier penalty, but it was the visitors who scored the first try through flyer Makazola Mapimpi, scoring his tenth try in his fourteenth match. Cronje added the extras as the visitors took a 10 – 3 lead after ten minutes.
The Kings played positive rugby in the Bulls half for most of the opening minutes and capitalised after the Bulls were reduced to 14 men after Jason Jenkins were yellow carded for a dangerous and late tackle on Cronje.
The Kings scored two tries whilst Jenkins watched from the sideline, the first through Cronje and the second through Malcolm Jear. Cronje converted his own try but missed Jear’s as the Kings raced to a 22 – 3 lead with seven minutes left to half time.
Jenkins made amends when he came back on as he scored their first try on half time, Schoeman converted as the Bulls trailed 10 – 22 at the break.
The Bulls came out for the second half more focused and determined as the momentum swung in their favour and scored an early second half try through wing, Duncan Matthews. Schoeman converted as the visitors trailed by five points, 17 – 22, two minutes into the second half.
Schoeman kicked another penalty as the game reached the final quarter to trail by two points and eventually took the lead for the first time with fifteen minutes to play when he kicked his third penalty to give his team a 23 – 22 lead.
As the game reached the final ten minutes, Kings’ Cronje snatched a sneaky drop goal to put his team back in the lead, 25 – 23. Cronje kicked another penalty minutes later to extend their lead to 28 – 23.
The Bulls threw everything at the Kings with only minutes remaining, opting to go for the five pointer with the Kings down to fourteen men. The Bulls finally broke through the Kings’ defense as replacement hooker Jaco Visagie scored what many would have believed to be the winning try. Schoeman converted from right infront to give the Bulls a two point lead, 30 – 28, with a minute remaining.
The Kings got one final penalty in a kickable position to snatch victory away from the Bulls. Cronje rose to the occasion and kicked the winning points for the visitors to record a memorable 31 – 30 victory.
Coach Deon Davids praised the Kings afterwards for a brilliant team effort.
“We have a very strong focus on a player driven culture where we’ve put things in place and as time went on we just slowly let the players take responsibility and accountability for their own planning and implementation for running the standard on the training field and for ensuring they make proper decisions on the field of play and you could see tonight. I’ve never doubted that we could win the game, because I knew if we just stick to our kick-off plan, just get the ball back, we migh get a good territory advantage or they would concede a penalty for us to kick and it just happened like that.”
“It was part of things that can only happen where players have confidence and a clear understanding of what needs to be done and also play for each other. And that is it, just a brilliant team effort,” said Davids.
Scorers:
Vodacom Bulls (3) 30 – Tries: Jason Jenkins, Duncan Mathews, Jaco Visagie. Conversions: Tian Schoeman (3). Penalties: Schoeman (3).
Southern Kings (22) 31 – Tries: Makazole Mapimpi, Lionel Cronje, Malcolm Jaer. Conversions: Cronje (2). Penalties: Cronje (2). Drop goal: Cronje.
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