GRAAFF-REINET SPORT NEWS — Over the last week, Union High School has taken on Gill College and Gill Primary on the rugby and hockey fields.
During the rugby matches, the Union first team let themselves down on Saturday, losing 29-34 to Gill College in Somerset East.
Considering that they led 29 - 10 with a quarter of the game left, it was hugely disappointing that they did not come away with a victory.
Credit must go to Gill for the way in which they threw caution to the wind and forced the Union boys to panic and lose composure. Union were far off the pace in the second half and made too many errors to build any kind of continuity or find any rhythm.
The boys did manage to score five tries, which is a positive. Breyton Damons, Michael Krige, Matthew Broeksma, Ronan Retief and Terrence Siyaya all crossed the try-line.
With two matches left, lessons must be learnt from what happened and the team will use every opportunity together this week to right the wrongs.
The first half of the U.13A's match was a real contest with Union conceding two soft tries but replying with two of their own.
Unfortunately, the second half was a one-sided affair with the Union boys lacking the energy and structure to keep their opponents under pressure.
Gill continued to increase the tempo and with poor defence from the Union side, Gill ran in five unanswered tries.
Other matches saw Union's U.11A team winning 5 - 0, the U.13s lost 12 - 50, the U.14A team won 12 - 5, the U.15A team won 48 - 5, the U.16A team won 14 - 8 and the second team won 17 - 7.
HOCKEY
Unions first hockey team girls met up with Gill College on Saturday, in what was a very physical battle.
The Union girls displayed a good brand of grass hockey, converting three excellent field goals in the first half.
Going into the second half, Union had high expectations of trebling the scoreline but stop-start play due to Gill girls getting injured they lost momentum and could only manage one goal before the game was blown short.
Even though the game was called short by 7 minutes due to Gill not able to field a full 11, a great team effort secured the desired result at the end of the day,
Goals were scored by Henze Jafta, Rebecca Langmead, Jenna McNaughton and Micela Loock.
During the first juniors team's match, one would have expected the girls to be a little rusty after the long break, but this was definitely not the case in their away match against Gill on Thursday.
While they may have experienced a bit of pressure in the first half, they were most certainly the dominant team in the second half.
A lovely chase and challenge by Chloe Erasmus was followed up by a perfectly timed pass, which was snapped up by Leah Marais who smashed the ball into the back of the box, putting our girls up 1 – 0 at halftime.
The second half saw the girls upping their work-rate substantially and concentrating on their positional play. This was subsequently rewarded by three more wonderful team goals from Soso Mroro, Chloe Erasmus and the second goal for Leah Marais. Gill also managed to secure a goal during this period of play which left the score at 4 - 1 to Union at the final whistle.
Although the goalless score does not reflect this, the second juniors team's girls played well and were easily the more dominant team on the day. They maintained possession for the majority of the game and played almost entirely in their attacking half.
Despite having the upper hand throughout, they were unable to capitalise as they lacked the hunger and determination needed in the circle to convert their possession into goals.
The third juniors' won their match 2 - 1.
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