The South African women’s rugby team has taken a historic win against the USA in a tournament in Canada, and we’re proud to say that there was a little bit of Grahamstown in that squad.
The South African women’s rugby team has taken a historic win against the USA in a tournament in Canada, and we’re proud to say that there was a little bit of Grahamstown in that squad.
A Grahamstown local, Daphne Scheepers, was one of 24 players chosen to play for the South African Rugby Union's squad in the senior Women’s Nations Cup tournament. The tournament took place in Toronto, Canada from 2 to 14 August.
In their opening match, the South African women’s rugby team put up a spirited first half performance but was eventually outclassed by a far stronger Canadian team who scored a convincing 52-17 win in their Nations Cup match.
“We are playing against top-ranked nations and this tournament will be great exposure for us. We started well and I am pleased we could get into good field positions, but we could not sustain it and that allowed Canada to build momentum,” said Denver Wannies, SA women’s coach.
The team also lost their next match, against England.
The team’s third match (against the United States), saw the South African women make the best of the rainy weather conditions earlier that day. After a patchy start from both sides, the USA pulled ahead thanks to two penalties. The South Africans had other ideas, however, and some direct running lead to two tries by centre Daphne Scheepers and prop Cebisa Kula, which brought the score level at halftime (13-13).
But as the Americans looked to pin their opponents deep in their own half, replacement SA winger Janine Felix took two clever offloads to race through for a pair of late tries to clinch a historic victory for South Africa. They won the match 26-23.
This was not only the squad's first victory at the Nations Cup, but also the biggest win in their history – and their first against one of the world’s top six teams. Wannies said that he is especially satisfied with the new crop of promising players who have forced their way into the senior squad.
“We worked very hard on our preparations for this game during the week. We knew coming into the competition that there would be certain matches we would be targeting, and this was one of those. On the day it worked out for us,” he said.
