Nelspruit ease past St David’s in their first clash at St John’s
Hoërskool Nelspruit opens their 15th visit to the St John’s Easter Rugby Festival against St David’s Marist from Sandton. Although this is considered home turf for St David’s, Nelspruit still is regarded as the favourites as they are one of the Pumas’ strongest sides.
The lads from Sandton gave it all they had and played good quality rugby at times, and even scored a converted try, but it wasn’t good enough to match the 25 points they conceded to Nelspruit.
Nelspruit opened the scoring with a try by their loosehead prop, Marthinus Celliers. A second try was scored in quick succession by centre Nico Liversage.
St David almost got a try themselves early in the first half but lock Philip-Maarten Pretorius made a try-saving turnover. Liversage added another three points for his side with a penalty.
Liversage scored his double and converted his own try. Nelspruit managed to get a 20-0 lead going into halftime.
St David’s entered the second half with a change of attitude and prevented Nelspruit from scoring several times. Although they have improved defensively, they were still struggling to get their attacking momentum going. After 12 minutes of hard grafting by St David’s, John-Kelly Okonkwo finally broke through the brutal Nelspruit defence to get his side on the board. The conversion was added by flyhalf, Leeam Van der Walt.
St David’s built momentum once again with a bouldering run by their try scorer, Okonkwo (#1). Pretorius (#5) made another try saving turnover for Nelspruit and ran almost 80m with the ball before kicking it as there was no support nearby.
Nelspruit scored their only try of the second half right as the hooter blasted through Devon Nell (#8). Although St David’s had a very promising second half, Nelspruit still managed to snatch a 25-7.
Hoërskool Nelspruit 25 (20) – Tries: Nico Liversage (2), Marthinus Celliers. Conversion: Liversage. Penalty: Liversage. St David’s Marist 7 (0) – Try: John-Kelly Okonkwo. Conversion: Leeam van der Walt.
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