Northwood digs deep to down Glenwood
Northwood School hosted Glenwood High on Reece-Edwards Field on Saturday, intent on securing a second successive season’s sweep over their Durban rivals. They did, winning 19-11, but it was far from a comfortable outing for the Knights.
For a long time, it appeared as if the day was going to belong to the Green Machine. They controlled most of the first half, more fluid than Northwood, whose rugged defence was put to the test.
For the early part of the second half, it was also Glenwood in the driving seat, but the hosts eventually found a way to win.
Glenwood started the brighter of the teams and quickly found some rhythm, hitting the ball up effectively around the rucks. Bit by bit, they forced Northwood deeper and deeper into the home side’s 22.
Then, a well-placed cross kick hung invitingly in the air. The Knights’ Savio Stevens leapt high, but Glenwood wing Sthabiso Dube had the advantage of running onto the ball and he hit it in his stride, leaping high and handsome to pluck it out of the air and crash over for a fantastic five-pointer within the first five minutes.
For the remainder of the first half, Northwood was mostly on the back foot, with Glenwood putting together some flowing passages of play, but they were kept at bay by the resilient Knights’ defence. It was 5-0 at the break to the visitors.
Early in the second half, Joshua Kopp extended the Glenwood advantage to eight points with an easy penalty kick. Another penalty put the Green Machine 11-0 ahead. They appeared in control and on course for victory.
But the match turned from the kick-off, when the Knights earned a penalty, which gave them possession and an opportunity to kick deep into the corner of the Glenwood 22.
“That’s our game plan. We spend a lot of time on our restarts, kicking to contest, so we can exert pressure, so that those things do happen. We were lucky enough for it to work out that way,” Northwood coach Jacques Deen told SuperSport Schools Plus afterwards.
Defending, the penalties began to pile up as Glenwood clung on, holding Northwood out. It came at a cost, though, as they had a player sinbinned for the deliberate collapse of a rolling maul. Even then, though, Northwood failed to take advantage of the opportunity, missing their next lineout throw-in.
They were, however, playing the match in the right area of the field and they trapped Glenwood behind their try line to force a five-metre scrum.
At last, 15 minutes into the second stanza, Northwood broke through for their first points, with scrumhalf Jed Mun-Gavin slipping through a gap from a ruck on the visitors’ try line to score.
Time continued to tick away, however, with Northwood still trailing 5-11 as the match headed into its last 10 minutes. Glenwood, though, was reduced to 14 players when the referee brandished a red card for a tip-tackle.
With four minutes to go, the Knights struck again. It was reserve scrumhalf, Ludi van der Walt, who did the trick.
Around him, with the game almost up, some of his teammates showed their frustration when he didn’t take a quick tap from a penalty, only five metres from the Glenwood try line. Van der Walt though, stayed calm, kicked to touch, and then crossed for the crucial try from the lineout that followed.
He converted his try, too, eliciting a roar from the home supporters as Northwood led for the first time in the contest, 12-11.
In the final minute, as happened when the teams met at Glenwood, the Knights dotted down, this time through ___. Van der Walt tacked on the extras, the final whistle sounded, and Northwood had won 19-11.
“Good teams find a way to win. Well done to our boys. It wasn’t pretty, but a win’s a win,” Northwood coach, Jacques Deen said.
It had been a tough and frustrating slog for his side, who had struggled to put it together after a long holiday break and minimal preparation for Saturday’s match. Acknowledging Glenwood’s performance, Deen said the score should probably have been closer.
The wind was a big factor, and the Green Machine used it more effectively than the Knights for most of the match. Deen reflected: “We said let’s go against the wind in the first half and then use it in the second half, but it didn’t work out that way.”
At halftime, he said: “I told them to stick to what we need to do, stick to their instructions, stick to our good points, like lineouts. But, today, for some or other reason, we couldn’t get our lineouts right. We didn’t read them.”
In the end, though, the message about sticking to their processes produced the desired results, and Northwood came away with the win.
Scorers
Northwood 19 (0) – Tries: Jed Mun-Gavin, Ludi van der Walt, Hleleni Mpendulo; Conversions: Ludi van der Walt (2). Glenwood 11 (5) – Try: Sthabiso Dube. Penalties: Joshua Kopp (2)
Results
u19 – Northwood I 19 Glenwood I 11; Northwood II 23 Glenwood II 14; Northwood III 22 Glenwood III 5; Northwood IV 17 Glenwood IV 5; Northwood V 34 Glenwood V 10.
u16 – Northwood A 20 Glenwood A 12; Northwood B 5 Glenwood B 0; Northwood C 24 Glenwood C 12; Northwood D 26 Glenwood D 17.
u15 – Northwood A 10 Glenwood A 11; Northwood B 8 Glenwood B 17; Northwood C 24 Glenwood C 7; Northwood D 17 Glenwood D 12.
u14 – Northwood A 28 Glenwood A 7; Northwood B 22 Glenwood B 10; Northwood C 19 Glenwood C 5; Northwood D 0 Glenwood D 5.
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