By Brenden Nel.
The Toyota Cheetahs made an impressive start to their EPCR Challenge Cup campaign, running in a 33-15 victory over Zebre Parma in their opening match on Saturday.
The Cheetahs led 16-3 at the break in an uninspiring game, but would have been disappointed with the fact that they let in two late tries to allow the scoreline to look a lot more palatable to the home crowd and that they didn’t get their own fourth try to get a bonus point in the match.
Still, for Hawies Fourie the win would have been another testament to the fact that the Cheetahs believe they should be playing at this level and would be a massive boost in confidence for the side as well.
But their win wasn’t on the back of something spectacular either. The Cheetahs simply scored when it mattered, and were a lot more clinical.
The stats will tell us that Zebre had more territory, possession, made more runs, gave away less penalties and tackled less than the Cheetahs, and yet with 12 minutes to go were on the wrong side of a 33-3 scoreline.
Yet that may well be part of the problem for Zebre, who never really threatened the Cheetahs line for the first hour and allowed the visitors to turn over ball all too easily.
In essence it was a great win for the Cheetahs, but there are few bigger sides in the competition that will not be scared by that performance, and the Cheetahs will know that they will need to improve if they are to hit their mark on going deep in the competition.
Two late tries for Hosts
Despite conceding 16 penalties, the Bloemfontein side never looked to be on the back foot throughout and the game was less of a contest than the scoreline suggests.
Still, there was very little movement, save for two Ruan Pienaar penalties early on before Cohen Jasper sparked some life to finish off a backline movement and suddenly put the Cheetahs 16-3 up.
It was a bit of a bizarre scoreline as it didn’t feel as if anything worthy had happened in the game in the first half either.
But when the second half began, the Cheetahs pounced almost immediately, with some excellent interplay and an inside ball to Tapiwa Mafura in the middle of the field prying open the defence, before the ball was sent to Reinhard Fortuin, who went over with two players on his back.
Louis van der Westhuizen went over at the back of the maul to take the scoreline even further and after another Pienaar penalty, the Cheetahs were sitting pretty at 33-3 up.
Two late tries by the hosts – with the second one in particular from their own line with a superb finish by Simone Gesi, made the scoreline look respectable.
But it will be the Cheetahs who will head home to prepare for the Sharks next week that will be the happier of the two sides.
Scorers
Zebre Parma – tries: Alessandro Fusco, Simone Gesi. Conversions: Geronimo Prisciantelli. Penalty: Tiff Eden.
Toyota Cheetahs – tries: Cohen Jasper, Reinhard Fortuin, Louis van der Westhuizen. Conversions: Ruan Pienaar (3). Penalties: Pienaar (4).