Cheetahs achieve lossless Australian tour

The Cheetahs defeated the Western Force 19-10 in Perth on Saturday, 23 March 2013, marking a lossless Australian tour for the men from Bloemfontein. 

The Cheetahs’ eye for opportunistic scores off opposition mistakes was again in evidence and resulted in a hard-fought 19–10 win over the Western Force in Perth on Saturday night. This time it was the Force dropping a ball as they played catch-up, which was kicked through for Cheetahs wing Willie le Roux to grab on the bounce and go over and score between the posts.

That made it a nine-point ball game with less than two minutes to go, and there was good reason for the Cheetahs coaching staff to head down to the touchline to start their celebrations. The Cheetahs had snuck home through a last-gasp score in Sydney the week before, so they are starting to do what opponents used to do to them.

They are still prone to run from almost anywhere, and it nearly cost them the game as some quite silly running from near their own tryline allowed the try that Winston Stanley scored to give his team a 7-6 halftime lead.

But it’s been the quality of the Cheetahs’ defensive game that has improved beyond measure this year, and it was the pressure they applied with their tackling that enabled them to win a match which for much of the way looked like it might be one of those final-game-of-tour bridge-too-far stories.

Scorers:

Force – Try: Winston Stanley. Conversion: Sias Ebersohn. Penalty: Jayden Hayward.

Toyota Cheetahs – Try: Willie le Roux. Conversion: Riaan Smit. Penalties: Smit (4).