No bonus points in Bloem

The scoreboard tells a different story but the Southern Kings had the upper hand in some areas in the game against the Cheetahs on Saturday evening. The Kings might have lost the game but they are much happier with their performance compared to last weekend against the Bulls.

Director of Rugby, Alan Solomons said the team had showed great improvement on their poor performance the week before against the Vodacom Bulls, attributed to travel fatigue following the team’s first Australasian tour.

“Not to take anything away from the Bulls, who probably put on their best performance to date against the Kings last week, but the players definitely did not play like they usually did in that game,” he said.

The Kings went down 12 - 26 after trailing 9 - 15 at half time and will return to Port Elizabeth with no points from the game, but there are a few positives they should build on before taking on the Waratahs in their next home game.

For the Kings Jacques Engelbrecht gained 80 meters from his 13 runs. Engelbrecht also hit 12 rucks/mauls and forced one turn over. Wimpie van der Walt added his weight to 11 rucks/mauls and made the second most tackles in the game, 15, Heindrich Brussow made 18.

The Kings enjoyed 56% of the territory and spend 6:05 minutes in Cheetahs 22 compared to their 5:22 minutes spend in Kings 22, but could only manage to kick 4 penalties. The Kings also forced the Cheetahs to make more tackles, 165 (88%), to their 111 (82%).

Solomons said that there is no comparison between this game and the game we played last week (against the Bulls), we held onto the ball, had much better possession and territory and were unfortunate to come away with the result that we did.

"There had been a few lapses in concentration, which had resulted in two tries being scored in the first half, that could have been avoided."

“The first try came from deep within the Cheetah’s territory, while the second was due to a defensive lapse,” he said.

“We also have to work on converting territory and possession into points; we need to be more composed in the opposition’s 22,” said Solomons.

There are also no casualties from the game which means the Kings could send their strongest possible team out when they face the Waratahs this coming Saturday at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth.