Maritzburg College beats Northwood 17-0 – match report

Northwood lost 17-0 at home to Maritzburg College but they had cause to be proud of their vastly improved and organised defensive effort which kept College in check. College tacklers also performed well as evidenced by the shut out the home team. It however was not a match to be remembered for attacking flair.

Northwood made a promising start. They controlled possession, gained territory, turned down a kickable penalty in order to challenge for a 5-pointer and almost reaped the greater reward when their big prop Gugu Nelani came the closest of all the Knights on the day to scoring a try. He was held up in a maul just short, ending that first offensive. Thereafter visits to the College 22m area could be counted on one hand.

The next memorable period of Northwood assault came just before halftime and proved to be the most exciting portion of an otherwise dull game.It was achieved through beautiful setups assisted by low body position driving carries near the fringes of rucks. However this structured continuity was not back up by quality finishing. Ball in hand patience was lost amongst the backs who resorted to dinks behind the College defensive line. These backfired and instead produced exciting counter-attacks from deep by various Red Black White players. The end result spoke for itself as Northwood finished empty-handed. All Northwood players performed their defensive duties well. Worthy of attacking praise was standout were energetic ball-carrying prop Nthuthuko “Mr T” Mthembu, as well as nuggety scrumhalf Jason Fuhri and captain at flank Keegan Sparks.

The match definitely wasn’t College’s finest attacking effort of the season. They looked flat most of the time. Their best innovation appeared to come from unstructured broken play so from their point of view it was a pity more of those instinctive situations did not arise during the 70-minutes. From patterned play, College’s passing seemed to be hindered by the windy conditions and inspiration was missing along with genuine game-breakers.

The College forwards were responsible for the victory. As one dimensional as overkill of rolling mauls and pick ‘n drive can be, it proved to be the most effective method of attack for the visitors. The opening try was scored by the College captain Kelton Thunder. It came compliments of a well formed driving maul after main lineout target Brad Muil had risen well to catch a ball near the Northwood line. Even though that initial breakthrough took all of 25-minutes to come about, College were full value for their lead. Fullback DN Griffiths’ educated boot could have turned the tide at Kearsney in a narrow defeat a week earlier. The new inclusion in the College team added the extras as well as a 45m penalty in the 30th minute to grow the lead to 10-0, where it stayed until halftime.

Northwood absorbed a lot of pressure in the second half. Even though the College forwards made ground and established useful front-foot platforms, chinks in the Knights’ armour closer to the tryline were not to be found except on one occasion in the 38th minute. College stole a lineout near the Northwood 22m and spread the ball wide quickly where their underrated outside centre ball recipient Sthembokuhle Mpanza used good footwork to dance his way past two closing midfield defenders before beating another to score a brilliant try and in so doing generate the main highlight of the match. Griffiths converted to make it 17-0.