Collegians secure hard-fought win against Primrose

Lentegeur-based Collegians RFC secured a hard-fought 29-24 win against visitors Primrose in a tough WPRFU Super League B fixture at Lentegeur on Saturday.

Primrose drew first blood with a try and conversion to take a 7-0 lead, but the home side pulled one back to make it 7-5.  The Kenilworth outfit dominated much of the first half, leading 24-8 with 10 minutes to go before halftime. 

Collegians struck back with two quick tries before the break to make it 29-24 and crossed over for another in the second half.

A win on any day is most welcome, but nothing beats the taste of victory in front of a home crowd, said coach Hashiem Samsodien, quick to thank the Collegians faithful who braved the weekend’s rainy weather to come out in numbers. “It rained Saturday right until the game started and stopped until after the game,” he said. 

“With the lead that Primroses had, the team didn’t panic and managed to gather itself nicely. They got stuck into the game again, and the belief they showed not to give up was admirable,” he said.

Saturday’s win put his side second on the log, on joint 36 points with log leaders Goodwood.

“Thus far,” he said, “we’ve played nine games with seven wins and two losses against Macassar and Paarl’s Vineyards RFC.”

Known for an exciting brand of rugby synonymous with the club, Collegians fell short of their competitive standards, finishing in 10th position last year in the league, said Samsodien.

However, considering their recent form, which saw them go from sixth spot on the log at the end of May, when they beat NTK 32-31 in a closely contested affair at Lentegeur, to their current position, the coach has reason to believe they can go all the way.

A variety of factors, mainly the inability to play home games at Lentegeur, as well as the lack of proper infrastructure, including access to training facilities, may have negatively impacted the club, said Samsodien.

“Thankfully,” he said, “our exco managed to secure our home again in Lentegeur, and our ultimate goal became to improve the log position of last year.

“The week before our match against Hamediehs our lineouts had a 20% success rate,” he said, referring to last week's encounter against the Athlone side, whom they beat 8-7. "We managed to turn it around and had a 90% success rate this week. 

“Our forwards managed to scrum Primrose on one or two occasions, but ultimately our backs showed and managed to finish off on the foundations that our forwards gave them,” he said. 

“Our backs were accurate and showed the Collegians' flair of yesteryear,”

Samsodien remains cautiously optimistic going forward, saying, “We need to start our games quicker. We tend to start sluggishly, so we need to do better from the kick-off,” he said.

Collegians will face Bellville in their next fixture at home, on Saturday, July 19.