The biggest irony of UP-Tuks’ nail-biting defeat against NWU-Pukke on Monday in the 2015 Varsity Cup semi-finals is ‘that we were not beaten by a better team. We simply lost to ourselves, making it so much harder to fathom’.

That is how UP-Tuks Head Coach Pote Human summed up the feeling in the camp after NWU-Pukke secured their spot in the final with the narrowest of wins (29-28).

UP-Tuks will think back on the match as one in which they were found wanting in too many critical components of the game. Despite the fact that they were always in with a chance to make the finals for the fourth time in eight years, they were also their own worst enemy by making too many basic mistakes on which NWU-Pukke capitalised mercilessly.

UP-Tuks’ handling let them down, their goal and tactical kicking were poor, they were not physical and aggressive enough at the break downs, they conceded far too many penalties (like the two in the scrums when they were on NWU-Pukke’s try-line) and, lastly, the inexcusable lapse in defence that allowed NWU-Pukke’s fly half Johnny Welthagen to secure the win through a long-distance try.