Sport can at times be like a game of snakes and ladders. That moment you think you are nearing the” top end of your game” you unexpectedly get “swallowed” ending up sliding down again.

Last night’s Varsity Cup-final in Stellenbosch was a case in point. Maties thrashed UP-Tuks 34-12 to win their fifth title.

Although Maties was considered to be the favourites, it was not expected they would be quite so dominant in the final. The relative inexperienced UP-Tuks, after all, has been improving, playing with more confidence each time they took to the field. However when it mattered most the UP-Tuks players ended up to become their own worst enemies. Especially during the first half.

In the build-up to the final UP-Tuks managed to fine-tune their tactical kicking to an art. The forwards were dominant creating a solid foundation from which scoring opportunities could be set up. Towards the latter of the UP-Tuks games passes very seldom went awry when the players had the ball in hand.

Unfortunately for the best part of last night’s game, they were not able to do any of this which made it really easy for Maties to win the physical and tactical battles. 

Lourens Pretorius (UP-Tuks centre) admitted that they got only to blame themselves for what happened.

“It was frustrating that we could not get going. We kept on making mistakes we normally would not do.”

During the second half, UP-Tuks did manage to stage a fightback setting up two brilliant opportunities for Dewald Naudé to score. With the score at 21-12, it was thought that the visitors might still have a slight chance to cause an upset.  But it all ended when the UP-Tuks fullback, Vaughen Isaacs, was shown a red card for a dangerous tackle on the Maties scrumhalf, Brendon Nell.  From then on Maties retook control of the game and went on to score another 13 points.

Pretorius refuses to use Isaacs send-off as an excuse.

“Playing with only 14 players did lead to us losing some momentum. However, the reality was that we were not good enough. All credit to Maties. They were the better team and deserved to win.”

Denzel Hill (UP-Tuks number-8) who deservedly received the award as the best forward player of the Varsity Cup Tournament ascribed Maties dominance to them being able to “starve” UP Tuks from the ball.

“It is hard to play good rugby if you don’t have the ball. Maties also impressed in the way they used defensive rucks to slow us down when we were on the attack.”

Marius Verwey (UP-Tuks captain) was impressive in the way he led from the front for the duration of the game.