Lions hunt Southern Cape at SA Senior IPT
Central Gauteng are within a games point of A-Division log leaders Southern Cape at the midway point of the 29th SA Senior Amateur Inter-Provincial Championship after a powerful assault in Wednesday’s second round in Knysna.
The defending champions scored a compelling 12 points against Mpumalanga and creamed Southern Cape 8.5 – 3.5 to claim four valuable points that moved the side to second in the standings.
Southern Cape was equally impressive against last year’s B-Division champions, though, and beat Mpumalanga 11-1 to retain the top spot with six points and 30 games points.
“It was quite a tough day for us, despite what the scores say,” said Central Gauteng team manager Jaco du Plessis. “We came out firing in the foursomes, but then started struggling a little against Southern Cape.
“We knew that we needed to lead Southern Cape to build a buffer ahead of the singles, because it was going to be tough to play those guys one-on-one in their backyard. We managed to take two games and halved another and we took four points off Mpumalanga.”
Richard Bruyns, Derek Reyneke, Jock Wellington and Schalk Naude opened the batting with four straight victories against Mpumalanga, while Bruyns and Reyneke also scored two early points against Southern Cape.
While the rest of the team cleaned up for the clean sweep against Mpumalanga, Stephen Johnston and Steve Williams, playing in the top order, won both their games 4 & 3 and Rurik Gobel secured another half point for Central Gauteng in his game against Leon Schulz.
“We are up in both our matches when play was suspended for dangerous conditions,” Du Plessis said. “The rules state that once a game moves through nine holes, the score stands if the round is called off, so we would have won both games at that stage, but we were glad to back out again and finish it. We didn’t want to be given the wins on the platter. It’s always great to deserve the win.
“We are in a strong position to defend out title now, but a lot will hinge on today’s matches. We are up against Ekurhuleni, who is third in the log and North West. Southern Cape will face off against Gauteng North and you can bet they will be looking to cement their top spot in the log.”
Ekurhuleni rose to third in the standings with five points, courtesy of a 6-all draw with Western Province, who leapfrogged North West and Mpumalanga for sixth spot in the log.
Meanwhile KwaZulu-Natal gathered four points after beating Gauteng North and Ekurhuleni 6.5 – 5.5 in two tightly-fought contests.
The men in black will be aiming for big victories over Mpumalanga and Western Province to boost their games points tally since Gauteng North, also on four points, has 24.5 games points in hand against KwaZulu-Natal’s 16.5.
Senior A-Division Results – Round 2
Southern Cape 3.5 vs Central Gauteng 8.5
Central Gauteng 12 vs Mpumalanga 0
Southern Cape 11 vs Mpumalanga 1
Ekurhuleni 6 vs Western Province 6
KwaZulu-Natal 6.5 vs Gauteng North 5.5
KwaZulu-Natal 6.5 vs North West 5.5
Gauteng North 7 vs North West 5
Senior A-Division Log
(Position, Union, Played, Win, Draw, Loss, Points, Games)
1 Southern Cape (4, 3, 0, 1, 6, 30.0)
2 Central Gauteng (3, 3, 0, 0, 6, 29.0)
3 Ekurhuleni (3, 2, 1, 0, 5, 21.5)
4 Gauteng North (4, 2, 0, 2, 4, 24.5)
5 KwaZulu-Natal (3, 2, 0, 1, 4, 16.5)
6 Western Province (3, 1, 1, 1, 3, 19.0)
7 North West (4, 0, 0, 4, 0, 18.0)
8 Mpumalanga (4, 0, 0, 4, 0, 9.5)
Written and released by Lali Stander on behalf of GolfRSA, a SAGA and WGSA Not-For-Profit