Sticking together in adversity and fighting hard every week have earned the University of Johannesburg rugby team a spot in the Varsity Cup semifinals against NWU-Pukke next week.<\/p>\n
UJ, who were under pressure after two opening losses in the competition, defeated University of Cape Town 18-17 on Monday to finish third on the log, behind Stellenbosch and the Potchefstroom outfit.<\/p>\n
This has given them another tilt at Pukke after they suffered a narrow 18-15 loss to the same opponents in Potch last month.<\/p>\n
UJ coach Werner Janse van Rensburg praised the team for their ability to fight back in a number of tough situations.<\/p>\n
“We faced adversity after those two early defeats and, with a number of injuries, there was a lot of pressure,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But the ability to stick together and to fight hard every week helped us to achieve a place in the top four.<\/p>\n
“For example, we faced a crucial match against Shimlas [Free State University], but our fighting qualities came through with a good win.”<\/p>\n
Following the two early setbacks, he said the team had won five of their remaining six matches and drawn the other.<\/p>\n
“We are not the main team on everyone’s lips. Each week there was pressure, but to get three consecutive wins, then a draw, followed by another win, ultimately we will take that.”<\/p>\n
Janse van Rensburg added that Monday’s semifinal in Potch would be all about who could handle the pressure on the day.<\/p>\n
“It’s also about knowing that you can win it in the 80th minute so you have to be prepared to fight all the way,” said the coach.<\/p>\n
“I believe our match against UCT, which was basically a quarterfinal, will have helped us to understand what sort of pressure we will face next week.<\/p>\n
“We have reached the semifinals the hard way and this group of players will know how to handle the key moments.”<\/p>\n
He felt the match would boil down to doing the basics well and focusing on their own game-plan without worrying too much about the opposition.<\/p>\n
“There will be no major out-of-the-box thinking. We have got into a semifinal and it’s mainly about sticking to what works best for us.<\/p>\n
“Of course we do need to do the basics properly, but our planning will be all about what we have done well this season.”<\/p>\n
Although the nature of knockout matches meant anybody could win, he said there was a sense of belief in the UJ squad.<\/p>\n
“After putting yourself through all the training you do in pre-season and all the hard knocks you take along the way, you have to make the most of this opportunity,” said Janse van Rensburg.<\/p>\n
“Getting to the play-off matches is what it is all about and having achieved that, you just want to make sure you do the best you can.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sticking together in adversity and fighting hard every week have earned the University of Johannesburg rugby team a spot in the Varsity Cup semifinals against NWU-Pukke next week. UJ, who were under pressure after two opening losses in the competition, defeated University of Cape Town 18-17 on Monday to finish third on the log, behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2230,1733,1977],"class_list":["post-17132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-uj-rugby","tag-university-of-johannesburg","tag-varsity-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}