For those of you who watched the Cheetahs beat the Sharks on Saturday, you will recall the try Jongi Nokwe scored. Jongi broke down the wing and had a clear run to the try line from the half way line but Sharks, 8th man, Ryan Kankowski chased Nokwe and actually caught the winger and got a hand full of Nokwe’s shorts but somehow Nokwe broke free from Kanko’s grip and continued on to score the try. What was amazing was seeing a Springbok winger have a foot race against a Springbok number 8 and the number 8 caught the winger! Not many people would think that a loose forward could catch a winger. What is interesting is that many have said Jongi is one of the quickest wingers in the game today but Kanko made light work of catching him. The question: Is Jongi not as quick as we think or is Kanko just amazingly quick (as quick as a winger)? Let’s not forget Kanko is much bigger, physically than Nokwe. Consider this (these are stats taken from Wikipedia); Kanko is 106kg and 1.93m tall and Jongi is 84kg and 1.84m!
For those of you who watched the Cheetahs beat the Sharks on Saturday, you will recall the try Jongi Nokwe scored. Jongi broke down the wing and had a clear run to the try line from the half way line but Sharks, 8th man, Ryan Kankowski chased Nokwe and actually caught the winger and got a hand full of Nokwe’s shorts but somehow Nokwe broke free from Kanko’s grip and continued on to score the try. What was amazing was seeing a Springbok winger have a foot race against a Springbok number 8 and the number 8 caught the winger! Not many people would think that a loose forward could catch a winger. What is interesting is that many have said Jongi is one of the quickest wingers in the game today but Kanko made light work of catching him. The question: Is Jongi not as quick as we think or is Kanko just amazingly quick (as quick as a winger)? Let’s not forget Kanko is much bigger, physically than Nokwe. Consider this (these are stats taken from Wikipedia); Kanko is 106kg and 1.93m tall and Jongi is 84kg and 1.84m!
I have just finished watching the Blues take on the Cheetahs in this weekends first game. How Guru can proudly say he supports the Cheetahs remains a mystery to me! It always gives me great joy seeing a South African team being thumped by a New Zealand team. A final scoreline of 46-12 to the Blues is a true reflection of the dominance the Blues had.
One point to note though is: were the Blues simply brilliant or were the Cheetahs awful? I will go with the later. I do not think I have seen such poor ball handling like that displayed by the Cheetahs this morning. They dropped the ball 3 times when they were over the try line, that is a simple 15 points they threw away. At this level that is shocking! If you can not catch the ball then how do you expect to win? The Cheetahs deserved to be hammered by more than the 46 points they got. The Blues themselves were also sloppy at times and they should have put atleast 50 on the board.
It is great to see the Blues playing the kind of rugby we have come to expect of them and their star players are starting to get into some kind of form. Watch out for the Blues!
I know Guru will not like me for this post but I have a funny feeling we could see the first 50 of the season on Friday when the Force take on the Cheetahs at Subiaco Oval. You may think I am going crazy but after seeing both sides perform last weekend, I am seriously worried about the Cheetahs. The Cheetahs seemed to be lacking that cutting edge which should be coming from their winger Jongi Nokwe but the guy is still out injured and will not be playing this weekend. Granted the Force lost to a much better Blues team but there were signs in the Force team that on any given day they could just rise to the challenge and looking at the team John Mitchell has sent out to play on Friday, I would be worried if I were a Cheetahs fan.
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